Thoughts on Pie Embellishment

Santa brought me an early gift this year, this little Le Creuset pie bird! I wanted to take him for a test drive and my boys love finding a pie on the table. I think he sure looks cute! The jury's still out on how functional I think he is... I added the bow after the pie cooled. As you can see my pies are very... rustic, but I still wanted to share some quick tips on how to add a little something extra to holiday pies.

The greatest tools for decorating pies are cookie cutters. You can use standard cutters or any of the new "specialty" dough cutters that have the plunger to add more detail. 
I suggest increasing your crust recipe by half if using cookie cutters. 

I baked the holly leaves on this pie and they got a bit too dark.
Covering with foil helps, or I baked them separately for my Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin Pie HERE.

Here's an example of using the cookie cutter to make the pie vent a decorative shape:

A star, gingerbread man or tree shape would work well.

You can cut a word out of your upper crust, something simple like "Joy" or "Peace" would be beautiful:

Dear Santa, please bring us a better team for next season... thank you.

Or maybe instead of a one piece upper crust cut all different sizes and piece them together:

This was a mini pie.

You could take that idea one step further and add some colored sugar for a pop of color:

My best tip? The most important part of baking is to have fun,
and if all else fails remember what I always told my boys,

if the pie's ugly, you know it's homemade:@)

Happy baking this holiday season!

I'm Joining: Homespun Christmas