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Homemade Pie Shield

Here's our test kitchen tips for protecting the edges of your pie crust during baking.

Sometimes the edges of a pie get too brown before the rest of the pie is finished cooking. The standard advice for dealing with the situation is to crimp strips of foil around the affected areas, but it’s easier said than done because the pie plate is perilously hot. And the strips of foil have a tendency to fall off as the pie is returned to the oven. We’ve devised a much easier method. We cut a circle out of a square piece of foil and then place that square on top of the pie.

1. For 9-inch pie, fold 12-inch square piece of foil in half and then in half again to make 6-inch square.

2. Working with folded corner as reference point, make two marks, one on each folded side, 4 inches from corner. Draw curved line connecting marks to form quarter circle. Tear foil along line.

3. Unfold foil. Place shield over pie and crimp lightly to hold it in place before returning pie to oven.

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