A Chocolate Coating Can Prevent Disaster For Runny Pies

Pies like dark chocolate hazelnut mud pie and classic pecan pie are delicious because of their smooth, creamy filling and golden, flaky crust. However, the unbaked liquid in these desserts can lead to disaster if you're not careful. In the oven, your filling can seep into your carefully rolled out and pricked crust, turning it soggy rather than flaky. Even if you don't use an all-liquid filling, mushier mixtures like fresh cherry pie filling can end up ruining your dessert.

One of the most delicious ways to avoid wet pie crust is to create a protective layer by coating it with melted chocolate — either white, milk, or dark. First, you're going to want to blind bake your dough, which means pre-baking it with pie weights (or another heavy item) until either partially or fully cooked. 

After your crust has completely cooled, use a pastry brush to coat the bottom and edges with melted chocolate, and stick everything in the fridge until the chocolate hardens. Although this is an extra step, you can even do this in advance and let your coated crust sit in the fridge until you're ready to bake. Then, dump in your filling and proceed as normal — and your crust should emerge from the oven flaky and fully intact.

An alternative, time-saving method to melting the chocolate ahead of time is to let the oven do the work for you. Instead of waiting for your crust to cool after blind baking, turn the oven off and throw ½ a cup of chocolate chips on top of your crust. Then, let everything go back in the still-hot oven for a few minutes until the chocolate melts, and take the pan out. Now you can go in with your pastry brush to make sure everything spreads evenly around the bottom and sides of your crust — but you won't have to wait quite as long to do so.

Of course, this tip works best for chocolate-lovers and for pie fillings that are compatible with chocolate. The coating will enhance the flavor of pies like double chocolate derby pie (and add a ganache-like layer to your dessert), and it will complement flavors like the ones in classic pumpkin pie, easy raspberry pie, and banana pudding pie. If you want fruity ingredients to really shine on their own or you're using flavors that you don't enjoy pairing with chocolate, you may want to use another technique to keep your crust sturdy.