All I get is a pan of melted butter. I use a convection oven?

dobieflower
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Best All Butter Pie Crust Dough
Recipe question for: Best All Butter Pie Crust Dough

7 Comments

drbabs December 20, 2021
This happened to me recently, too. There were fairly large pieces of butter in the dough, and they just kind of melted out, leaving me with a cracker like pie crust and a pile of melted butter in the oven. Aargersi is right about chilling, but I baked mine from frozen, so for me, it wasn’t that. My theory is that the dough wasn’t hydrated enough and/or the flour wasn’t blended well enough with the butter. I haven’t had a chance to try out my theory, though.
 
aargersi December 21, 2021
Dr B that makes sense to me … I ALWAYS make my dough the day before and let it rest in the fridge over night. I also use a food processor to mix so my butter chunks are smaller …
 
aargersi December 20, 2021
Are you saying you did use a convection oven? It’s VERY important when working with pie dough to give it ample time to chill. I usually make my dough then chill over night. Roll it out, put it in the pie plate and chill again. Fill it and - you guessed it! Chill it!
With proper chilling you should be fine with convection or standard ovens.
 
dobieflower December 20, 2021
I was just wondering if using a convection oven makes a difference.
The hot air is evenly distributed by a fan.
I chilled dough 1 hour, chilled the rolled out dough in pan another 30 minutes. Was blind baking the crust. Do I need to chill longer?
 
702551 December 20, 2021
Commercial bakeries use convection ovens.

In Europe convection ovens have been quite commonplace in residential kitchens for decades. Europeans seem to have figured it out. Typically the oven temperature is reduced by 20 C when the fan is on.

The poor results likely stem from overly warm dough and/or poor handling.
 
dobieflower December 21, 2021
My unbaked dough was very cold, the fridge is 37 degrees.

Could possibly be under handling, I’m afraid of making it too tough.

Will try one more time.
 
702551 December 21, 2021
I suggest you refrigerate the rolled out pie crust (molded in the pan) if you are blind baking.

You might also have a hydration issue as drbabs mentions. You may need to add more water. Note that flour changes over the seasons as well as relative humidity, location, ambient temperature, brands, etc. Same with butter. The milk from the cows changes over the seasons based on diet (grass versus hay) and other factors. The corresponding butter will also change.

Baking recipes are guidelines not gospel. Adjust as necessary.

Best of luck.
 
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