snowflake cutout apple pie for christmas

In addition to the cookie christmas tree and reindeer cookies that I made this past Christmas, I also made this apple pie for dessert! It's been a recent tradition of mine to make apple pie for Christmas, including this Christmas wreath apple pie, or this Christmas Tree apple pie (there's even a Hello Kitty apple pie in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), so this year I decided to do snowflake cutouts for my pie!

I started with a batch of my favorite pie crust (recipe in my book!), divided it in half, and rolled out my bottom crust to fit into the bottom of my 9-inch pie dish. Then I poured in my apple filling (apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and a pinch of salt), and then used a snowflake cookie cutter to make a snowflake decorated top crust!

After a quick egg wash and a sprinkling with sanding sugar, I popped it into a 415F oven for 15 minutes, and then lowered it to 350F for 45-50 minutes, until the crust had become golden brown.

I'm already thinking of more shapes to make for future Christmases to come! 

Enjoy!

christmas wreath shingled apple pie

One of my favorite Christmas decorations is a beautiful Christmas wreath. Just the sight of wreaths hanging on all the doors in the neighborhood gives such a warm and welcoming feeling. In the past I've made Christmas wreath cupcakes, Christmas wreath mousse cake, and Christmas wreath cookies, so why not make a Christmas wreath apple pie?

Last year I made this Christmas tree apple pie, so this time I did the same thing except with little circle pie crust cutouts instead of Christmas tree shapes. It starts with a homemade all-butter pie crust, filled with sliced apples that are tossed with sugar, flour, cinnamon, ground cloves, and a pinch of salt. (You can actually find the entire pie recipe in my new book, The Hello Kitty Baking book - just look for the page on making Hello Kitty Apple Pie!)

With half of my pie crust dough, I rolled it out and fitted it into the bottom of my pie pan. Then I filled it with my spiced apple filling, before rolling out the second half of my pie crust and cutting out little scalloped circle shapes with a small cookie cutter. Then I neatly arranged a row of circle cutouts along the perimeter of my pie...

... followed by a second row of cutouts...

... and finally a third row to complete my wreath. Be sure to leave a little hole in the middle of the wreath to let the steam escape from the pie!

I baked the pie at 425F for 15 minutes, then lowered the heat to 350F for another 45-50 minutes (and by then the entire house smelled like delicious apple pie!)

The pie turned out perfect - the crust was tender yet flakey and crispy, and the apples were perfectly cooked with just the right amount of sugar and spice!

While the pie didn't resemble a Christmas wreath as much as I had hoped it would, I thought it was still super cute, and could actually be made for any occasion. I'll definitely be making this again, maybe next time I'll just called it "scalloped apple pie"! :)

christmas tree cutout apple pie

Along with the strawberry Santas that I made for Christmas dessert this year, I also made an apple pie. But not just any apple pie; this one was decorated with lots and lots of Christmas tree pie crust cut outs! I had seen pies like this on Pinterest in the past, mainly with star cut outs for the Fourth of July. So I thought it would be fun to do for Christmas as well.

So I made my favorite all-butter pie crust, and divided it in half. I rolled out and fitted the first half into a 9-inch pie pan, and used the other half to roll and cut out Christmas tree shapes with a cookie cutter.

Then I peeled, cored, and sliced 5 apples, tossed them with flour, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and salt, and spooned them on top of the bottom crust. And then it was time to decorate the top with the Christmas tree cut outs!

To help give the crust a nice golden color, I brushed the top of the crust with egg wash, and then sprinkled on sanding sugar. After baking the pie at 350F for about 50 minutes, it looked like this!

My pie crust and the cutouts shrank quite a bit, but it was still quite tasty!



Hope you had a Merry Christmas!