Question
Alison Flatley
What is the best way to trim excess dough from a pie crust and at what stage of a bake (pre, post blind bake, etc) to have a clean edge and prevent shrinkage?
Answer
So typically, when you're making a pie crust, you usually do it about a half an inch away from the rim of whatever pie tin or pie dish you're doing it in. And that basically just kind of leaves you a little room. I'm a big fan of the kind of tuck and fold method on pies. So when you get that half inch around the outside, you can basically just tuck it under itself and kind of tuck it into the pie tin as you will. And that gives you enough room to be able to do that. And if you're putting another layer over the top of the whole thing, you basically will just pinch around the outside that half inch layer and then tuck the whole thing underneath. It gives you a nice, really kind of thick edge crust on the outside of a pie. I do it with pot pies a lot, too, which is nice. But it's nice because it gives you a nice firm edge for your pies. So when you're actually scooping it out, too, it's not going to just fall apart on the edge because a lot of pies, when you first put your spatula or knife in, the crust just kind of crumbles away. This way, you get a nice crumble crust, but it's a little bit thicker at the same time, too. So about a half inch is about what I do. The shrinkage, I don't have to worry about it too much, as long as you're just tucking it under and folding and giving a little bit of space above the tin, that shouldn't shrink too much.
