Jessica Battilana, Staff Editor, writer and recipe developer at King Arthur Baking Company, recently shared some valuable pie-baking information on the King Arthur blog.

Her article, “Things bakers know: Don’t freeze disks of pie dough — do this instead,” (which is part of King Arthur’s Thanksgiving Survival Guide) explains a much better way of stocking up on pie dough prior to bake time.

As the old saying goes: “If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.” Years ago Jessica worked at a bakery, and this old saying was their motto. They’d start their Thanksgiving pie crust-making months in advance in order to meet demand, so freezing dough (and doing it right) was a must.

But rather than freezing disks of dough (which needed to be thawed, rolled, and shaped before they could be filled and baked), they’d freeze rolled-out pastry right in its pie pan and simply stack them atop each other once frozen. This is “the much better way” she says we ought to practice as well.

To do this, Jessica recommends metal pans, which can safely go from freezer to oven (disposable aluminum work also). If you don’t want to tie up your pans, you can gently remove each frozen crust from its pan, and stack them inside each other, first adding a piece of parchment between them as insurance against sticking. Then you’d wrap the whole stack with plastic wrap (or set them into a plastic bag and seal the bag tightly).

When you’re ready to bake, just pull a crust from the freezer, add the filling, and bake. This method saves time when we need it most—in the middle of those one or two time-crunched days just before the actual gathering.

Jessica reports the results from doing your pies this way are consistently great. The only necessary adjustment is adding a few minutes to the pie’s overall bake time. This even works for pies that benefit from a parbaked crust, such as pumpkin.

And speaking of pumpkin, she shared another tip: She takes her crust all the way through the par-baking step, lets it cool, and THEN wraps and freezes it. When the time comes to finish the pie, she just adds the filling and bakes (no need to thaw). Smart, right?

And if you’re making a double-crust pie, put one crust into the pan as directed above, then roll the other disk of dough flat. Transfer it to a sheet of parchment paper, then gently roll into a tube and set carefully in the freezer. You’ll need to let it thaw before unrolling, but because it’s a thin piece of dough rather than a thick disk, it’ll thaw a lot faster.

I’m excited to try Jessica’s suggestion and am curious to know if any of you already knew about, and practice this technique, too? I bet this is gonna be a game-changer, pie-wise!