There are many blog posts and Youtube videos to teach you how to make a basic lattice pie crust. We’re taking things a step further and showing you 4 Easy Ways To Make Your Lattice Pie Crust More Beautiful.
How To Make A Fancy Pie Crust
Building a basic lattice pie crust takes time. We find the repetition of braiding, stamping, overlapping, and weaving comforting, maybe even therapeutic. The type of pie tops we end up with depend on mood, but we default to pie dough cut-outs of leaves, other cookie cutter shapes, letters, and rosettes to make lattice pie crust more beautiful.
You Need Extra Dough To Make Decorative Pie Crusts
All these techniques require more dough than if you were to make a basic lattice top. We like to make an extra half batch of pie dough or even double the recipe to ensure we have enough dough for the decorations (any unused pie dough can be stored in the freezer for next time). Because you will be working the pie dough with your hands, and leaving it out for an extended period of time, we recommend placing the finished unbaked pie in the freezer for at least 30 minutes to allow the pie dough to chill and firm up again before baking.
RELATED: All-Butter Pie Crust Recipe
1. Leaf-Shaped Pie Crust Cut-Outs
One of our go-tos for decorative pie crusts is leaf-shaped stamps. Williams Sonoma carries the classic set of leaf pie cutters but you should be able to find them online through other retailers. Leaf cutters are great for all types of pie, especially autumn, like Granny Smith Apple Pie or Chocolate Buckwheat Pear Pie. We like to add a strip of braided pie dough to the lattice for additional texture to the pie top.
2. Stamps and Cookie Cutters To Make Fun Shapes For Pie Crusts
Besides leaves, you can use any other types of stamps or cookie cutters to punch out fun shapes for your pie top. We love using a strawberry stamp for strawberry pies in the summer, and a cherry stamp for tart cherry pies. Fruit-shaped pie dough cut-outs are a great visual indicator of pie flavour. Shapes can depend on the holiday or season, for example hearts for Valentine’s Day or snowflakes in winter, or can be purely for fun. Use your imagination!
3. Use Letter-Shaped Pie Dough Cut-Outs to Make Words Or Sayings
Adding cheeky sayings or song lyrics to lattice pie tops is a super fun way to decorate a lattice-topped pie. Check out Baked member Amy Ho’s post on her blog where she made 12 Different Pies Topped With Drake Lyrics. It’s one of our favourite things ever.
4. Handmade Pie Crust Roses
Pie crust roses always impress but they do take time and practice to make. You have to cut dough into small circles, then cut those into half circles which you overlap to create a petal effect. Keep in mind you need at least 4 or 5 half circle pieces of pie dough to make each rose. Pie crust roses look gorgeous on the edges of a pie, especially if the edge of the pie is crimped. They do retain their shape when baked but the definition of the petals is not as crisp as the unbaked version.
What do you think of these 4 easy ways to make your lattice pie crust more beautiful? Will you try them? Do you have any other ideas we haven’t mentioned? We’d love to hear from you! Let us know in the comments below!
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