Unbaked tart shell for a custard tart

Thanks a lot for all the comments. I've made the pastry but haven't gotten round to making the filling yet. I am planning on making tartlets and testing both methods - par-baked and unbaked to see what the results are - and yes, I will use different tart tins just so the experiment is worth it. Many thanks.

My experience with quiche and pumpkin pie is that par baking the crust hardly ever makes a difference unless the cooking time is very long. Pumpkin pie only takes about 45 minutes to bake, same with quiches, but the quiche I saw being made on a cooking show the other day was super deep dish (6+ inches) and cooked for almost two hours at a fairly low heat, so I could see it being a good idea to pre-cook so that the crust doesn't disintegrate before it cooks enough to hold it's own against that much moisture (it still looked pretty soggy when it was served though).

The heat in my oven does come from below, and I often start baking a little hotter than the recipes calls for (about 50 degrees f. too hot for the first ten minutes of baking). I'm not sure if this is a silly habit, or one that actually helps though.

It shouldn't be necessary, but it wouldn't hurt to par-bake the crust (don't cook it until finished) before you fill and bake your pie.

The custardy pies I've made lately call for baking the shell blind (completely) and then filling with a creme patissiere and chilling -- but that's a different product.

I think your instincts are right - I always par bake for pumkin pies which are also custard based, and others too like buttermilk pie. You may have to cover the crust edges while the custard bakes. As an aside - I also like to roll turbinado or demerarra sugar into the crust for sugar crunchies - yum!!