Maybe if you had clean uncirculated pennies and lots of them(why?) but using pennies from my local gas station in my pies? How about no..... And washing them seems not worth the effort when a bag of dry beans is 70 cents .
They're easy to clean, and they don't come in direct contact with the dough at any point. America's Test Kitchen found that pennies work better than beans due to how they conduct heat. If you don't like the idea, that's fine, no one's forcing you.
