Petra Cox: I am Petra Cox with Moms Apple Pie bakery in Occoquan, Virginia and today I am going to show you how to make some decorative crust and decorative crust cutouts for a pumpkin pie or any sort of chess or custard pie that you might want to make. So I have some butter crust pie dough right here. That Ill roll out on a floured surface using a nonstick roller and if something comes up you can just sort of press it back in, youre not done rolling yet.

Since I am going to use this in long sort of long rope type things, I am going to roll it out longer instead of in a rounder or square shape. And flipping it over just ensures that it doesnt stick to the surface. Alright so from my strip up dough, I am going to cut a strip down, this is no more than half an inch strip and its rolled about a quarter of an inch deep.

I am going to gently take that away from the other part. I am get to make another strip cut of the same width and these little strips, I am going to us to wrap around each other and this we can us to put around the edge of our pie crust. So, since they are so thin, youll find that they will sort of break a little bit you can just kind of patch them back together, itll all look fine when its done baking.

So, I crisscrossed the strips of dough so that I could flip them over without damaging them too much. And then I am just going to alternate the strips sort of like youre breading with two pieces. And this probably will be quite a long enough, and Ill show you how we could add more to make it longer. Were just going to press this gently in to the bottom crust that we have already made.

Trying to cut one other strip and cut that in half since that probably what I would need and do the same thing alternate and sort of twist these over each other. And I am just going to work this gently since our dough is at room temperature, nice workable temperature. Gently pressing this together, so then you have a nice sort of breaded crust that you gently press in to the bottom crust and when you fill up your pumpkin pie, you can fill it only to the edge of the original bottom crust.

So that it doesnt leak out if there are any edges that havent been pressed together and for some cut outs, well add a little lump of dough and with this small knife you can cut any shape you want to, can you use cookie cutters too, thats a quick and easy way to do it but if you have a design and you dont have a design in mind, you need to have a cookie cutter, you can cut anything you want. So, going to cut a little leaf pattern and so that they dont have the sharp edges on the top, Im going to sort of round that out.

And you can make indentations for the veins and this can be laid over the top of the filling of a pecan pie or pumpkin pie or any sort of custard pie. And just so that has a nice sheen on it, were going to mix together a little egg wash which is an egg and about and a table spoon or two sugar. And either brush it on or sort of gently dip that in egg wash, that will make your cutout nice and shiny when you put it on your pumpkin pie to bake.

So that is how we make a decorative edge and a decorative cut out for a pumpkin pie or any sort of custard or pecan pie and now were going to go ahead and make the pumpkin pie filling for a pumpkin pie.