What is the purpose of blind baking and when is it used?

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Blind baking means cooking the pastry shell before adding any wet filling. The main goal is to harden and set the crust so moisture from a juicy fruit filling or a custard doesn’t soak in and make the crust soggy. This is especially important for fruit tarts and custard-based pies, where the filling is moist and would overwhelm a raw crust. In practice, you line the shell with parchment, weigh it with pie weights or dried beans to keep it from puffing or shrinking, bake until the crust is set and pale, then remove the weights and finish baking if needed before filling. It’s not about speed, changing thickness, or just getting a darker crust—it's about keeping the crust crisp when the filling is wet.