Do you want to make your pies stand out? Decorate them with pie crust cut outs to make them even more beautiful. I will walk you through the steps on how to do these.
You know the extra dough you are left with after you make your pie shell? Don’t throw them out! It takes just a minute to make something awesome with it for your pie.
Roll out your dough on a well floured surface. You don’t have to flour the top of the dough. And you can roll it out into whatever shape works best for you.
For the Hawaiian Style Pumpkin Pie, I used a mini pumpkin cookie cutter to make little cut outs for the pie. I have a few different sets of these mini cookie cutters I have purchased from Sur La Table and Williams Sonoma. They come in a variety of shapes. Flowers, animals, fruits, leaves, etc… I don’t use them for mini cookies, I use them for my pies.
Roll your dough out to about 1/4 inch thick and cut out whatever shape you are using. Before I bought these mini cookie cutters, I used to cut out leaves with a knife free hand. That is also easy to do. Just another idea.
Cut out as many as you can. You can roll out the dough again to cut out some more if you need to.
I always have a parchment topped plate nearby that I can place the freshly cut out pieces on. After you have cut them all out, place your plate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to ensure the pieces of dough will not shrink in size when you bake them.
After you have chilled them for at least 30 minutes, slide the parchment paper onto a baking sheet. Place them in a 400 F preheated oven for 12 minutes or until they are a light golden brown.
I let the pieces cool and if I am not serving the pie right away, I keep them in a ziploc bag until I am ready to use them. I never place them on my pie until I am ready to serve the pie so they don’t get soggy. You can either decorate the top of the pie (which is usually what I like to do) so your pie has a beautiful presentation.
Or you can place them on individual pieces of pie right before serving them so everyone gets a decorative cut out on their own piece of pie. Your guests will notice the extra mile you went and it will be our little secret that that extra mile was actually a “piece of cake” easy! I hope you give this a try on your pie or pies this Thanksgiving. Trust me…. your friends and family will think you are Martha Stewart talented!
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