I have some notes I printed out from this website maybe a year or two ago that included advice from RLB on successfully freezing pies.  The advice was to line a pie plate with plastic wrap, put the dough, filling etc, in the pie plate, cover with more plastic wrap, freeze until solid, then lift the frozen pie out of the pie plate, put it in a freezer weight plastic bag and store it that way.  Then put it back in the pie plate to bake.  You bake the frozen pie, adding about 20 minutes baking time to the original recipe.

Taking it out of the pie plate accomplishes two things, so far as I can tell, it frees up the pie plate for other uses and allows you to follow the advice not to take the pie plate directly from the freezer to the oven.

I tried it last Thanksgiving and it worked beautifully except for one problem.  The edge of the crust crumbled and broke terribly.  I just couldn’t get the frozen pie out of the plate with breaking it a bunch and then every time I moved it, however gently, there was more breakage.  Now, I’m a pretty amateur pie crust maker and so my edges are ummm, well, rustic would be a very polite term, and maybe a better formed edge holds together better when frozen and I just need practice, but has anyone else tried this and can anyone offer some suggestions for keeping my already sad looking crusts from looking even worse?

TIA!

Is it an option to just leave it in the pan?  When I bake from frozen, I dip the bottom of the pie plate in warm water for about a minute before putting it in the oven so the glass won’t shatter (though I’m always amazed at how well pyrex holds up to temp changes).

I have a cookbook where the crust isn’t baked in a pan at all.  You roll out your crust into a 12” circle.  Put some egg white in an 8” circle in the middle of it.  Add your filling to the 8” circle and then fold the rest of the crust over it, as if you were enclosing it in a dish towel.  By the time it makes it up the sides and the folds and all, you have about a 4” open middle for steam to escape.  Maybe you could do that and freeze it on a cookie sheet and then bag it?  Then just bake it on a cookie sheet when you’re ready.  It’s quite lovely and rustic looking!