Beans for baking blind
Pastry crusts often need to baked blind, i.e. without filling, to give a crisp result. To prevent the pastry puffing up the crust is lined with foil or paper and then weighted down with baking beans. You can buy ceramic baking beans for this purpose but I use regular dried beans to fill my pastry crust. You can’t use the beans for eating after they have been used in this way but they can be re-used for the same purpose. Simply allow the beans to cool completely before storing them in an airtight tin or box.