decorative pie crusts

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. Friday felt like the day after Christmas to me. I just crashed and completely vegged on the couch editing photos, taking in Barbra in Hello Dolly! and ordering a few things online while everyone helped themselves to leftovers. Anyone else take it easy?

I’ve been baking so many cookies for the last couple of months that it was a nice change of pace in the kitchen. We began the season in celebration of my mother-in-law’s 91st birthday. She’s a go-getter, is tech savvy and is very involved in knitting for The Knots of Love program.

I was in charge of the dessert and baked my County Fair winning Dutch Apple Pie made with cider and our family’s multiple county award-winning chocolate cake. One of these days I’m going to have to take the time and post the recipe and photograph the process. Trouble is, we like eating it too much to take the time to write about it. 🙂

Here’s the birthday pie before I sprinkled on the crumb topping. Honey crisp apples were delicious in this. You’ve seen how I paint the decorative pie crust leaves before but the link is highlighted if you’re reading my blog for the first time, and if you are, welcome. 🙂

And with the topping –

For Thanksgiving I had a request from my men to make a repeat pie. I went for the apple motif this time around.

I made a rookie mistake on this decorative pie crust because I was preoccupied making the rest of the feast. I sprinkled the decorative apples with granulated sugar before baking. I had a moment of knowing I shouldn’t be doing this but I did it anyway. Normally in a medium temp. oven that would have been fine but not in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes. I just wasn’t thinking. The majority of them burned while others were fine. Go figure. They were easy to flip off before serving. Should have listened to my inner baker.