Is A Cold Oven The Secret To Better Fruit Pies?

If you open any cookbook to the baking section, without fail, your first step will be to preheat the oven. This is an indispensable step designed to heat food quickly and prevent bacteria from growing, especially in recipes with ingredients like eggs. Preheating also helps food cook faster overall. But forget everything you think you know because, in some cases, preheating your oven can be a problem.

Pies — especially fruit pies with elaborate crusts — can be one of the more difficult pastries to master. If cooked improperly, you'll end up with a crunchy, raw inside and a burnt outer crust that baked way too fast. Starting with a cold oven for fruit pies gives the fruit filling more time to warm up and meld together without overcooking the crust. While this method does take a bit longer since you're skipping the preheating step and baking more slowly, the evenly cooked results are worth the wait.

So why does a cold oven start work for fruit pies and not something like, say, a chocolate silk pie or meringue? Well, when was the last time you put eggs in your peach or classic apple pie? Rising agents like eggs and yeast grow bacteria if left at room temperature, also known as the "danger zone," for too long, so preheating the oven helps kill off the bacteria by drastically increasing the heat. Thankfully, fruit pies don't use eggs in their recipes — neither in their filling or crust — so they can endure the slow cooking that starts with a cold oven. 

One important thing to note is that when we say "cold oven start," we truly mean leaving the oven off until the moment your pie goes in. Some recipes call for preheating to a high temperature, like 425 degrees Fahrenheit, and then dropping it for cooking, but this can still result in burnt crusts. So, if you're going all in on the cold-oven method, really go all in for a deliciously brown, flaky crust and ooey-gooey filling. Still feeling iffy? We wrote about everything you need to know about preheating versus cooking in a cold oven, so all your questions are answered.