I love beautiful pies! Sometimes I look back in the early years of our marriage and think of how many years I wasted not making beautiful pies! It makes me sad to think about it, honestly! Today I want to give you a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the past 3 years when it comes to making beautiful pies! Anyone can do them, without special tools or any experience! If you can use a pizza cutter, a spoon, and a small flower shaped cookie cutter you can make the pie below in just a few minutes!
Beautiful Pies-Tips 1-3
- Rather than just covering up your apple pie with a top crust, use a pizza cutter to even cut long strips from your rolled out top crust. Just before you lay them on the pie twist the crust in a spiral. When one strip runs out, press a new strip to the original one and continue the pattern. EASY! Make the strips thick or thin to change the design of your pie!
2. Try out a thick/thin alternating lattice style! This pie bakes up beautifully! Add a little embellishment on the upper corner if you like!
3. Cookie cutters! Roll out your dough and use your cookie cutter. Place the shape (stars in my case here) around the pie. Use a bigger cutter of the same shape for a focal center point! 
Here I’ve just used two leaf cookie cutters. You can add lines using a butter knife or pick up a set of cookie cutters that do it for you! This is the set I have, but they are not required!
Tips 4-6
4. Mr. Humiston, my 10th grade geometry teacher, would be so proud of this geometric pie! 🙂 Wow your guests by laying the top layer of apples out in a pattern. Use your pizza cutter again to cut thin strips of dough. put a small glass in the middle and layer the strips around the glass until the whole pie is covered. So pretty! You can make an apple slice rose of the middle too!
5. Have a beautiful crust that didn’t bake up well? I tried a new layered outer edge on this crust and it fell off! So to save the day, I whipped up some meringue, piped it into rosette shapes, and VIOLA beautiful pie!
One awesome tool I won recently in a pie baking contest was an easy pie crust shaper tool. I am smitten with it. It shapes my dough perfectly in no time. I have made many a pie without it, but my pie life is even more enjoyable with it! This is the one I have (Pictured Below)
6. Vine Time! Again using that pizza cutter, cut this even strips. Apply them in a winding fashion until it looks like vines. Using a small flower cookie cutter I added some flower embellishments.
Tips 7-10
7. Add some color! After 54 straight days of -20 to -50 degrees Fahrenheit here in Montana, we finally had a warm 34 degree day, so we celebrated going above freezing with a springtime pie! Use food coloring and a food safe paint brush (or use a regular paint brush–full disclosure that is what I did-but I feel like I should recommend using a safe one! ha ha!) It bakes up vibrant and beautiful! NOTE: When you are using a foil disposable pie tin, your edges most likely will remove themselves from the pie tin. It is a sad fact of pie baking in tins that will be given away and tossed. If anyone has a tip to prevent this…I desperately WANT to know!
8. Cut it out! An I am not talking Uncle Joey from Full House style. Measure the size of the top of your pie pan. Free hand a design and gently place on pie. This one went to a family who just had their first baby girl!
I did the same thing here, except this time, I used a piping tip to make the circles. I used the big end first, then the small end in an alternating pattern.
9. Match the Holiday! 4th of July? Thanksgiving? Halloween? Birthday? Combine a few methods mentioned above and try something new!
10. Braid it! Cut thin strips using a pizza cutter. Braid them together to create a basket look! Add some color too if you’d like!
Overall, I can say, just try something new and fun! Making pie is one of my favorite things to do. It is so fun to create! Anyone can do it! If you make a pie and try a new design, I want to see! Send us a picture on our Facebook page! Happy baking!
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