Yes, the beans are great. A couple other tips that help. First the most important one. Make sure when you put the crust into the pie that you ease it in. Don't stretch it. Give it plenty of slack in the bottom of the pan then just easily lay the sides on. The stretching makes it want to spring back when you bake it. Of course dock it plenty too so you don't puff up. The last tip is to bake it after it's been chilled well. A room temp crust can tend to slump easier. Those tips and the beans should give a nice crust. One of our faves for holidays is pudding pies so we are always making blind crusts. Well them and lemon meringue. Good luck and have fun at the party. With a strawberry pie though you could stick it in the worst lookin crust and nobody would care. LOL.

Without a recipe for the filling, I really couldn't say about that... But... thaw the pastry, and pat it into the tart tins...making sure to get it into all the fluted edges. Then place a piece of foil into the shell, fill it with "pie weights"..sort of metal beads...or use beans you save just for that use...and bake at 375 for about 12 minutes...remove the weights and the foil and bake another 3 or 4 minutes and cool. Now if you are useing a cooked filling put it into the cooled crust ( the filling should be cool too) then just before serving, top with the fruit....I suspect that's what the cherries were for? What a wonderful thing to do!....and now you can make tarts often ...in his memory. I am adding a copied recipe from a mag. of a lot of years ago...perhaps it will give you an idea of how he made the dough...and how you might make some when this is gone. Linda C This from Cook's magazine a lot of years ago......none better! Pastry: 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1/4 cup cake flour 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 pound chilled butter in cubes 2 egg yolks....and water if needed. Mix dry ingredients and cut in butter until mix resembles peas. Work in the egg yolks....and if necessare to make a smooth stiff dough, up to 3T of water. Form into ball, cover and chill 30 minutes. Roll dough slightly larger than tart pan.....fit into pan and roll the pin over the edges of the pan to cut off excess dough....Chill at least 5 minutes....or over night. Fill with buttered foil weight with pie weights or beans and bake 10 minutes at 375, remoive weights and foil and bake another 10 minutes at 350. Pastry cream 2 1/2 T. flour 1/4 cup sugar pinch of salt 3 egg yolks 1 cup milk 1 tsp vanilla 1 1/2 T eau d'vie...or liquor that blends well with the fruit youa re going to use. 2 tsp butter. Mix sugar and salt in a heavy pan,beat in egg yolks, gradually whisk in milk, cook and whisk over low heat until bubbles break surface.....boil 1 minute stirring constantly. Remove from heat ands tir in vanilla and liquor. lay plastic wrap on the surface of the cream and chill. Glaze 1 cup of apricot preservs or red currant jelly and 1 T water.... Heat until jelly is melted. Put pastry into shell, cut up fresh fruit of your choice ( strawberries, raspberries, peaches, apricots, kiwi....or a mixture.) Brush with glaze,chill and serve

I've baked a number of fruit pies recently and found the best way to maintain the integrity of the crust (staving off sogginess) is to cover the leftover pie loosely with a flour cloth and keep it on the counter. This has worked far better for me than plastic wrap or putting it in a Tupperware pie keeper in the fridge. I would still put any cream/milk based pies in the refrigerator and suffer the consequences with the crust. But most fruit pies can stay a day or two on the counter. My kitchen temp. is in the 65-72 range. The covered plate you're considering would be nice to cover & carry to someone's home, but IMO it's not the best choice for storing.

So sweet of you to want to make you husband a pie from your own kitchen. I've made a lot of pies, but only two BCPs (Banana Cream Pies). I love BCPs and home baked, from scratch always tastes the best. Both times I couldn't resist making "black bottom BCP" -- that means I grated semi-sweet chocolate atop the baked (from scratch) pie shell, then added the easy-as-pie to make vanilla/banan pudding and banana filling. I topped it with my own whipped cream (just a bit of sugar and vanilla added). I put a few shaving of semi-sweet chocolate atop the whipped cream (just a bit). Pie crust is easy for me to make, but it was t always that way. My first attempt used a d tossed out a whole 5 pound bag of AP flour just trying to get a simple shell. So if making your own pie crust will be anything other than fun for you, keep it simple for now and go with a sure bet such as the wafers. Same for the filling and topping. Your sweetheart will find your homemade pie delicious. Have fun making it and send us a photo if not a slice. i too was just looking at a photo and recipe of BCP, so there could be something in the air.