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See why.Pie Weights
For a perfectly baked pie crust, use the best pie weights.
By Published May 17, 2019
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See Everything We Tested
What You Need To Know
Many of our pie recipes call for blind baking—baking the crust either partially or completely before adding the filling. But without a filling to hold the raw dough in place, the bottom can puff up or the sides can slump as it bakes, resulting in ugly, misshapen pies. To prevent this, the test kitchen uses pie weights. We do this not just for aesthetics: A slumped pie crust provides less room for filling.
While bakers can use dried beans, raw rice, and granulated sugar as pie weights, we wanted to find the best product designed specifically for the job. We tested four models of pie weights, priced from about $6 to about $60 per package, in a range of materials and styles, including a set of ceramic balls, a set of aluminum beans, a 6-foot-long stainless-steel chain, and a steel disk ringed with soft silicone flaps. As opposed to the balls and beans, the steel disk model consisted of just one piece, theoretically making it easier to use and store than traditional loose pie weights.
Were They Easy to Use?
We used each model to partially bake 9-inch pie shells (Three-in-One All-Butter Pie Dough) and 9½-inch tart shells (Sweet Tart Pastry). For each test, we evaluated how easy the pie weights were to use, how evenly the crusts browned, and how successfully the weights prevented the doughs from puffing up or slumping down.
At the start of testing, we had high hopes for the chain and the disk models. It was a breeze to position both of them snugly in the dough-lined plate and extract them with one simple movement once the crust was baked, but those were the only things they excelled at. In every other evaluation, they flopped (more on that later).
To test the ceramic balls and aluminum beans, we followed our recommended test kitchen procedure. We placed two layers of aluminum foil on the chilled raw dough, loaded in the pie weights, and baked. To remove the weights in a tidy fashion, we pinched together the sides of the foil (holding two corners in our right hand and two corners in our left) and lifted. Placing the weights on top of layers of foil kept them from touching the raw dough, which meant that we didn’t have to wash them afterward. And while using the balls and beans was a little more time-consuming than using the chain and the disk, the balls and beans gave us much better results, so we didn’t mind the extra steps.
Weighing the Results
Next, we turned our attention to performance. Unfortunately, the chain didn’t live up to the promise on its packaging that said it “prevents crusts from bubbling.” We tried arranging it on the dough in a variety of ways, ...
Everything We Tested
Recommended
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 2 stars out of 3.
One package of these aluminum beans, which contains 2¾ cups of beans and weighs 2 pounds, fit perfectly in our winning tart pan, so its sides stood tall and the dough was very crisp. But in pie plates, one package reached only two-thirds of the way up the sides of the pie dough, and the sides slumped slightly. Two sets of these beans would have sufficiently kept both the bottom and the sides in place, but at a cost of more than $100, these beans are not worth it. Our winner was a quarter of the price and performed just as well.
Not Recommended
- Ease of Use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 1 stars out of 3.
This perforated metal disk ringed by silicone flaps, which we used to recommend until our test cooks started reporting that it didn’t perform well in all types of dough, performed inconsistently in our tests. When we used this model with our all-butter pie crust, the dough slumped and then caved in on the pie weight, rendering the crust unusable. This model struggled with our tart dough as well; the walls slumped significantly. Although it worked OK with a dough made from a mix of butter and shortening, we can’t recommend this model—we wanted a pie weight that would work with different types of pie and tart doughs.
- Ease of Use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 1 stars out of 3.
We liked the idea of a weighty stainless-steel chain, but at 6 feet, it wasn’t long enough or heavy enough to perform well. In one test, the dough puffed up between gaps in the chain, leaving behind deep impressions in the crust and less room for filling. The crust also slumped so badly that it became unusable. When we covered the dough with aluminum foil before putting the chain in place, the bubbling wasn’t as pronounced, but the sides of the dough still slumped. Arranging the chain in a tight coil didn’t work either.
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The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing.
Carolyn Grillo
Carolyn is a senior editor for ATK Reviews. She's a French-trained professional baker.
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