Pie Spackle

To ensure a crisp, not soggy, crust, many of our tart and single-crust pie recipes begin with a crust that is either partially or fully baked before being filled.

But sometimes when you take it out of the oven after this prebaking step, you find that cracks or holes have emerged in your lovely, carefully-constructed crust. Imperfections such as these allow filling to leak through, sogging out the crust and making the dessert difficult to serve.

The go-to solution for this problem is to patch the holes with leftover scraps of dough. But what if you threw your scraps away already or simply don’t have any? Enter: Pie Spackle.

Pie Spackle is the term for the malleable flour-and-butter mixture we make that can be gently pressed into the holes or cracks of a warm pie crust. You smear the edges of the mixture to seal them to the crust (like spackle you’d use to patch a wall) and then bake the crust for a few more minutes to firm up the spackled area.

The spackled areas won’t taste, look, or feel exactly the same as the rest of the crust, but once the pie or tart is filled, no one will be the wiser.

1. Stir together 4 tablespoons of all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, and a pinch of sugar until it has the soft consistency of Play-Doh.
2. Using your fingers, take a small amount of the mixture and press it gently into the hole or crack in the warm pie crust, smearing the edges to seal them to the baked crust.
3. Bake the crust (without weights or foil) until the spackled area is firm and dry to the touch, 5 to 10 minutes. 

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