Every year I get so excited to make a Thanksgiving Pie. It’s the one time of year I feel like I can go all out and make it extra fancy!
Dressing up a pie is really pretty easy, and the best part is no matter how perfect you make it, it’s never supposed to be perfect– just yummy! So it’s pretty hard to mess up (whew!).
Here’s how I did mine this year-
First off, I used to make homemade pie dough. And then I found Trader Joe’s. There’s no point in making your own! Their’s is better! (and if it’s not, PLEASE send me your recipe, because I’ve certainly never had anything better!) I tried out filling my pie extra full this year- I love the look of the high top full of filling.
I wanted the top to look like the lattice tops made with these rollers but I don’t have one, so I cut slits with a sharp knife, varying them as shown below.
Every once in a while I’d stretch out the dough to make sure my cutting was still the right size.
After cutting, I folded the dough into quarters so it wouldn’t fall apart on its way to the pie.
I put the folded dough on top of the pie, centering the dough, and carefully unfolded.
Then I stretch out those pretty cut marks, pressed the dough down all around the edges and cut the extra off with a knife.
Now the fun part! I took the left over dough and re-rolled it out to cut out fall decor for the top! I have a set of Williams Sonoma pie crust cutters- they sell a 4 pack every year and almost every year you can get a set on clearance starting a few days before Thanksgiving. This year’s set is currently on sale for $4.99.
I just cut out however many fit in the leftover dough and then start designing the pie accordingly! (I find that they stick better if you get the back a little wet with water or egg whites)
And here’s my pie ready for the oven!
Happy Pie Day everyone!
Lovely! I’ve just tried my first TJ’s crust – very nice. I still prefer Pillsbury for eating raw (hey, if you’re not making pretty things with the crust extra bits…), but TJ’s is pretty good. My favorite homemade recipe is Julia Childs’ one for quiche – it’s something like a stick of butter, 2Tbsp shortening, salt, sugar (in varying proportions depending on what you’re putting in the crust), and 3 cups or something of flour (baby’s asleep near the cookbooks, so don’t want to disturb her!)(yeah, she took a nap at 6:30 and I haven’t woken her up… I’m in trouble tonight!)… it’s very nice. Even better if you replace a bit of the fat with cream cheese. I swore I’d never make crust again, but I used the dough blade on my food processor for the first time when I was out of storebought crust, and it was really super easy. I’d call them a tie 🙂