Bottom Pie Crust Not Getting Done

[whitehat]

Greetings to all,

I'm new here but I understand some answers can be found consulting with
fellow bakers and I wanted to try it out.

My wife and I own a pie shop, a top selling pie we make is Old Fashion Sugar Cream Pie
but lately we are experiencing an area the size of a golf ball bubble up from the bottom. We
can pop the bubble during cooking and it will go back down and finish baking or not pop it and we finish baking
it, either way after baking when cooled and I can flip the pie over to look at the bottom I can
see the crust is not done the diameter of a golf ball; it is uncooked and doughy. This problem
doesn't happen all the time but enough to be concerned about. Does anyone know what might
be causing the problem? and even more importantly what can I do to prevent this from happening?
Thanks Dave

[K. Slink]

I start my pies at a higher oven temp. for a period of time to help set the crust, then finish baking at a lower temp. I also make sure the pie shells are extremely cold before putting them into the oven, they usually spend a bit of time in the freezer before being filled.

Post your recipe, type of oven, baking time, and temperature and maybe we can figure something out...

[whitehat]

Hi K. Slink,

Thanks for replying, My wife and I suspected we may be creating this hot spot
initially when we pour the hot liquid into the shells before we put them into the oven.
You see we also pre-cook the proprietary blend of ingredients on the stove first
possibly getting the liquid too hot then pouring it into the shells and maybe melting
the gluten at the spot that first hits the bottom crust causing it to bubble up...
what do you think? We use a commercial convection oven, 15 mins at a hot temp.
then turn down to a lower temp for another 15 mns. to finish baking.
One time we did use frozen crust shells and I didn't notice any bubbling.
How about not cooking the liquid so hot on the stove plus using colder shells?
thanks Dave

[K. Slink]

That could very well be the problem. I checked recipe search since I've never made this type of pie before, and noticed two things right off the bat. Some directions call for no pre-cooking of the ingredients, and others require a partially baked shell.

You might want to check it out and compare your recipe/technique against some of the others and do some experimenting for the best and most consistent results. Good luck to you!

[whitehat]

Thank you I'm so glad I joined here and asked about this. Experienced bakers like yourself are like gold in the bank. take care

[K. Slink]

Keep us filled in on your results and what the final solution turned out to be. It's hard enough to have unsatisfactory results at home, but disastrous in a business setting--been there!!!

[BasilRock]

Hi Whitehat, I must say K.Slink knows the baking techniques. I am not a great baker, but on the "Chew" today Carla made a Mile high apple pie and cooked the apples first so that there would not be any air pockets. But the one thing she said to do was to make sure that the filling was cooled to at least room temp before adding it to the crust. I think that is the conclusion that both of you came to. I guess that makes a lot of sense and I will use that info myself in the future. Good luck with your business.

[K. Slink]

I'm going to try that myself next time I make an apple pie, I can't stand that gap where the apples have collapsed but the pastry stays in place! It always seems more pronounced when using vegetable shortening in the dough, just one of several reasons I switched to lard instead...

[whitehat]

@K.Slink, Here's what we came up with: We don't let the filling cool off at all (at pie shop we don't have the time) however we do use chilled shells and even
frozen shells work as well and we also pour the liquid into the shells in a circular motion alleviating the possible hot spot problem, and.... we also stepped up to
an even hotter temp than we did before for a short time then turn to lower temp to finish baking. Much more consistent results now so your original advice was
a key in our solution.
About apple pies: We use pure vegetable shortening in our crusts, we don't seem to have much problem with space between fruit and top crust.
I think it is because our crust recipe is very tender/flaky and our vents we cut in the top crust are large enough to provide enough steam to escape and allows
the raised crust to settle back down when cooling. Thanks a bunch

[K. Slink]

Glad to have been of help, hope you sell many over the holidays!!!