Well, I'm too late, but I also blind bake with parchment paper as a liner and beans as pie weights I bake mine at 425F for 25-30 minutes, or until nicely golden brown. I mostly tell by appearance, but 25-30 minutes gives me a crust that can take a second baking if that's necessary. Sometimes I remove the pie weights and finish baking for a longer time if it's a cream pie or something that will require no additional time in the oven after filling. Annie

Lard has a larger fat crystal than other fats, which is one reason it works so well in pastry. Butter gives great flavor but has a lot of water in it and it melts quickly. The combination of lard and butter in pastry is a great twosome. When I use coconut oil (frozen and grated on the large hole on my box grater), I can reduce the amount of fat by about 25 percent, especially when using pastry flour or milling soft wheat or low-gluten spelt into flour to use for pastry. Good pastry is a combination of tenderness and flakiness and each characteristic is developed differently. Pastry is all about reducing the gluten development in the flour, so choose flour (pastry flour or Southern All-Purpose flours like Martha White, White Lily, Gladiola, Red Band) that has a low protein/gluten content to begin with as a great way to reduce gluten-development up front. If you want more tender pastry while using all-purpose flour you can add a little more fat and add an acid ingredient. Divide the cold fat in two portions and mix one half in the flour until it's very finely mixed. This will coat the flour so it develops the gluten in short strands (hence short-crust pastry) when the liquid is mixed in and will give a tender crust. Quickly add the remaining fat and keep it in larger blobs. When the heat of the oven melts the blobs of fat the steam will raise those layers in the pastry we recognize as a flaky pastry. Vinegar in a recipe is another way to decrease the gluten-development. Adding an acid brings one more tenderizer into play. "Acids soften gluten, breaking apart gluten strands and keeping the pastry tender." When eggs are used in a pastry recipe it is best used for something like a meat pie. The protein from the egg will reinforce the structure of the pastry, making it strong enough to hold a hefty filling. When liquid vegetable oil is used to make pastry it is considered a "warm fat", which coats each particle of flour so completely than no gluten develops. Oil pastries are very tender and tend to be more mealy than flaky since you don't have steam raising those flaky layers. Oil pastry is generally easier to handle and is easy to roll between two sheets of waxed paper. It's neither right or wrong what type of pastry you make - it's just one of those cooking/baking choices we make - BUT - as a general rule of thumb don't take an oil pastry to the fair because it will tend to get judged down because they rarely come up to judging standards. If a sticky dough that is hard to roll-out is your problem, you have too much gluten developed - probably from adding too much liquid and/or using flour that has a high protein content. Northern all-purpose flours like King Arthur and Robin Hood really don't make good pastry because of the high amount of protein. Add as little water as possible!!! As soon as lumps of dough stick together during mixing, stop mixing and adding water. It takes very little extra water, as little as 1/2 teaspoon, to quickly toughen the dough. -Grainlady

Bruce, I blind bake my pie crust for pumpkin pies all the time. I also precook the filling as stated below, works like a charm... don't remember where I came across the recipe, as it's been years that I've been making it this way. The ingredients are very similar to Libby's Famous Pumpkin Pie recipe, but the procedure is different, which I prefer.. Pumpkin Pie (1) 9"pie Prepare blinded baked 9" pie shell. · 2 cups evaporated milk · 1 - 15 oz. can pumpkin · 3/4 cup sugar · 1/2 tsp. salt · 1/4 tsp. ginger · 2 tbsp. cornstarch · 1 tsp. cinnamon · 1/2 tsp. nutmeg · 1/4 tsp. cloves · 2 egg yokes · Whipped cream In a large pot, place all the ingredients together-- except egg yokes -- & bring to slight boil all the until thick, approximately 15 minutes, stirring so no lumps will form. In a small bowl, temper the egg yolks, pour a little of the hot liquid over the egg yokes & mix well, then add to the hot mixture. Pour pumpkin mixture into a blind baked pie shell & bake for 15 min at 350. Cool and top with whipped cream Lucy

It's the morning after, and I am thankful for all you good people who took the time to post and get me through a bad moment. I learned from your posts, and I laughed with your posts. Most importantly, I found out that even on a cooking forum, not everyone makes the perfect, flaky, homemade pie crust. Thank you for telling me that I am not alone. I am through with pies and pie crusts. This year will have been the 20th year of trying, and it was the worst yet. It is time to move on. I am a market gardener, and I grow wonderful organic strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and rhubarb. When I bake with the fruit, I do a crisp, a cobbler, or a tart. DS has a love of pumpkin pie, and I think my efforts are emotionally entwined with being the "good mother", but I am going to find a good bakery next year. You are all right- there is more than one way to skin a cat (that is a horrible saying isn't it?) I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. You all helped make mine a good one. :)