The Pizza Tool That Makes Soggy Bottom Pies A Thing Of The Past

Making and sharing a homemade pie is the stuff of memories. On the other hand, a failed pie may haunt you forever, which is why a pie with a soggy bottom should be avoided at all costs.

Fortunately, there's a super handy secret that can prevent this devastating outcome, and it requires only one tool that you may already have on hand — especially if you're fond of making another kind of pie — and that's a pizza stone. The reason this works is because it helps mitigate an inherent conundrum in pie construction. A custard or fruit-filled option like classic apple or sugar cream pie is delicious, but also full of moisture. Even if you pop your pie in a perfectly hot oven right away, those wet fillings sit in your pie crust long enough before setting up that the wetness transfers to your crust, and you wind up with slices that are sodden and unpleasant.

Pizza stones are slabs designed to be preheated. The material sucks up all that heat and then passes it along to whatever you set on top of it — and that transfer is the key to this pie trick. A preheated pizza stone blasts the underside of your pie with a dose of high heat immediately, increasing your odds at having a perfectly browned bottom that can hold its own against the moisture of your filling, and prevent the whole shebang from becoming saturated and soggy.

With that heat transfer process in mind, you can also use a baking steel instead, which has similar properties to a pizza stone (and can actually hold onto that heat even longer, making it useful for crisping up the crust of homemade bread, too). But if you don't have either of these on hand, there are some other measures you can take to help prevent a gummy pie bottom. 

If you're open to adding a little flavor, a layer of melted chocolate or almondy frangipane can function as a barrier that protects the surface of your crust from moisture transfer. If you'd like a more neutral solution, a beaten egg white brushed along the base of your pie can help too, as can a homemade substance called crust dust (a mixture of equal parts sugar and flour) when scattered over the surface before filling your pie.

Whether you've gone through the trouble of avoiding common pie crust mistakes, broken into the bar cabinet so you could have an extra flaky finished product, or even just picked up a frozen option from the grocery store, the common denominator is that no one wants a soggy-bottom pie. Thankfully, heeding this pizza stone tip will help guarantee your slices have a satisfying contrast and between luscious filling and buttery, flaky pastry — and that's the stuff of dessert dreams.