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Can you freeze a fruit pie?

Fresh fruit pies are great, but they’re best when they’re freshly baked. There isn’t always time to make a crust, assemble a pie, bake it and let it cool all before you want to serve it. After all, if you’re preparing it for a party, that adds quite a few steps to your preparation for the day! This begs the question, is it possible to make a bake a fruit pie in advance, then freeze the pie and simply reheat it (or defrost it) before you are ready to serve?

The short answer is that it is entirely possible to freeze a fruit pie after baking, but it isn’t going to save you much time. The pie will have to be completely cooled before freezing, and it will need to be defrosted before you put it into the oven to reheat so that the pie crust becomes crispy again, not mushy. It is better to freeze an unbaked pie that has been assembled and bake it in the oven as you would bake a store-bought frozen pie; it will take a slightly longer baking time, but the overall result will be better. Plus, you get to put in-season fruit in your pie and bake it any time of year.

If possible, try to just bake your pie the day you intend to serve it, or perhaps the day before. To save time, prepare the crusts ahead of time and store them in the fridge, well-wrapped, for a couple of days. Having your crusts and filling ready to go will save a lot of time and turn what seems like a long process into a short one. Then you just have to wait until the pie is cool enough to eat!

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5 Comments
  • SM
    June 1, 2010

    Can you freeze the homemade filling for a fruit pie? I was wondering that today…strawberries are coming into season and I was wondering if I could mix up the berries/tapioca/lemon juice/sugar mixture and then bake pies during the winter.

  • Kitchen Corner
    June 1, 2010

    Good tips! My friend served me an apple pie which had freeze for 6 months and it still taste very good. Next time will make more and freeze it, convenient for serving guests hur 🙂

  • Allison
    June 1, 2010

    I always wonder if I can freeze everything that I make. I like the tip of freezing the unbaked pie. You could definitely stockpile some pies during the summer months when fruit is at their peak and then be able to enjoy pies year round.

  • Babette
    June 2, 2010

    In “The Pie & Pastry Bible” R. L Berenbaum gives very detailed instructions for freezing pies. If I recall correctly, she thought that frozen, unbaked apple pies baked up better than same day pies.

    As for me, I’m still freezing summer fruit and pie dough, just separately. 🙂

  • Whitney
    June 2, 2010

    I make up my pie filling- put it in a large ziploc freezer bag and set it in the pie dish to freeze it. When frozen I just stack the pie dish shaped fruit. Then I just make a quick pie crust when I want pie and pop my perfectly sized filling in the crust. Still not -pull out of the freezer and put in oven- easy, but it makes it a little easier.

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