[Sca-cooks] Pastry Question

[osermart at msu.edu]

Greetings all, and Happy Holidays!

I have a question for more experienced pastry-makers...

For Christmas dinner yesterday I made an almond tart from Martha Stewart (look for the Almond, Cinnamon & Cranberry Tart) that called for a pate sucree crust.  This is about the second time in my life I've made a pastry crust, and everything worked well until I got to the blind baking step.

After the crust had baked for 10 minutes, I took it out to remove the beans I'd used to weight it and the the sides of the crust had slumped over in spots!  I was able to use my long icing spatula to press everything back up against the sides of the pan and it stayed that way for the rest of the baking.

The pan I used was a straight-sided 8-inch round cake pan (the recipe called for an 8-inch springform pan, which also has straight sides).  Husband says I should have filled it with beans high enough up to hold the sides up as it baked.  Is this the case, or is there some trick to sticking the pastry to the sides of the pan so it doesn't slump while baking?

Many thanks!

-Helena