I promised to bring a tart to a friend's house last night, but I didn't feel like making a crust. Instead, I used puff pastry from the last batch I made. I had seen this idea before, but I wish the suggestion had included the advice I learned yesterday.
This dough wants to shrink as you prebake it, and pie weights don't seem to do much to stop the crust's slouch into the pan. I used a technique from the Bouchon cookbook to fight the shrinking. Roll out a piece of dough three inches wider than you'd need otherwise. Press the dough into the flutes, but let the dough hang over the edge of the tart pan by a half inch or so. Trim anything more than that, and use the scraps to fill in breaks in the crust. Cover in foil, poke holes through the foil and crust with a fork, and fill the foil with pie weights. Bake on a cookie sheet until brown (about 20 minutes at 425°). When the crust comes out, remove the foil and weights, let the tart shell cool, and then cut off the lip with a bread knife perpendicular to the tart pan edge. The overhanging dough prevents the crust in the pan from shrinking.
The other problem with a puff pastry pie crust is its flakiness. Isn't that what you want in a crust? Yes, but not when it shatters at the lightest touch. Keep the tart safe in the tart pan for as long as you can, and use a serrated knife to carefully cut pieces.
