David Russo's Blog: Pretty Pie Crusts for a Gorgeous Thanksgiving Dinner

Dessert is generally my favorite course of any and every meal, and Thanksgiving dinner is no exception. In fact, if I could, I would only eat the pie. But these pies are almost too pretty to eat thanks to these pretty pie crusts from our resident geniuses, Abby and Jess. If you really want to impress your Thanksgiving guests this year, these creative crust ideas are definitely the way to go.

Blooming Apple Pie

You can create this pattern with any sliced fruit, we used apple. Fill your dish with a layer of pie dough and half your fruit filling in as smooth a layer as possible. Starting from the outside edge of the pie dish, layer in the remaining fruit slices in a swirl pattern, with each slice overlapping the one before it. Spiral in until you reach the center.

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Cinnamon Bun Crust

We used this for pecan pie, but it would work well for almost any pie- apple, pumpkin, the list goes on and on! Roll out two layers of pie dough to have 2” of overhang once in the pie dish. Make a cinnamon sugar pie crust sandwich by spreading some melted butter and sprinkling a few tablespoons of cinnamon sugar in between the two layers of pie dough. Place in the pie dish and use kitchen scissors to trim the dough overhang into ½” wide fringe around the whole dish. Take two pieces of fringe and twist each away from each other, then fold down into the pie crust and press in place. Repeat until all the fringe is twisted and tucked back into the pie dish.

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Scalloped Edge

Use a small cookie dough or ice cream scoop to cut out a scalloped edge from your pie crust, then use a chopstick to dot the center of each scallop. Gently place the dough in your pie dish and fill with pie filling (we did pumpkin).

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Monogram

Simply use alphabet cookie cutters or a knife to cut out a letter initial from the center of the pie crust, then gently lay the crust over the pie.

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Layered Flowers

Use a flower cookie cutter (we used this daisy one) to cut out flowers from thinly rolled out pie dough. Fill your dish with a layer of pie dough and filling (we did a cherry pie), then spread out flowers over your pie filling. For the flowers on the edge, just place the flower as best you can and gently cut along the pie dish to get it to fit perfectly. We then used the cookie cutter to cut out petals and used individual petals to line the rim of the pie crust- make sure to press them on with a bit of water.

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