Yes, You Can Blind Bake Your Pie Crust Without Weights
Blind baking pie crusts is a tried and true trick that helps prevent pie crusts from getting soggy. Even renowned bakers like Paul Hollywood recommend blind baking and actively use this technique quite often. Essentially, this technique involves covering and weighing down raw pie dough before placing it in the oven to bake without any filling, essentially crisping and sealing the crust.
Typically, blind bakes are done with the help of pie weights. These are small balls made of ceramic or metal. However, pie weights are not necessarily required to complete a blind bake. As long as the covering on top of the pie crust is weighed down with something, the crust can be blind baked.
Instead of buying brand new pie weights, many bakers use items readily available in their homes. Pie weights are commonly replaced with dried beans evenly distributed on top of the pie crust. There are plenty of other alternatives to pie weights that work during blind bakes to help keep your pie crust intact.
Pie weight alternatives for blind bakes
The convenience of pie weights is that they are easy to reuse and do not need to be replaced often, if at all. However, splurging on an extra cookware item is absolutely not a necessity. Many bakers use a mix of dried beans as a replacement, including kidney beans, black beans, and pinto beans.
Another common alternative is uncooked rice. Any type of rice can be used during blind bakes, which is super convenient. Other common alternatives include popcorn kernels (don't worry, they won't pop), white sugar, or just placing a second pie plate on top of a layer of parchment paper. And if you're concerned about food waste, these items can be used again.
At the end of the day, the point is to get an even distribution of weight across the crust during the blind bake. This is why something as large as a second pie plate works just as well as something as small as white sugar granules. As long as the weight is distributed evenly across the entire surface, the crust will do well in a blind bake.