How to Make 18 of Our Most Showstopping Pie Crust Designs

Simple Yet Spectacular

If traditional crimping cramps your style, pick up a paring knife and customize your single-crust pies with these striking geometric motifs. We have three clever ideas: checkers, crosshatch, and points.

Checkers

If you love the checkered look, top, start by making short, straight cuts around the rim of the pie dish at scant one-inch intervals; fold every other piece in toward the filling.

Crosshatch

To achieve a crosshatch pattern, left, press the knife blade at a diagonal along the pie's edge, going deep enough to make an indent but not cut through. Repeat in the opposite direction.

Points

If you like the idea of a crust with many pointed tips, bottom right, simply cut small triangles all the way around the rim. Be sure to leave the tips about one inch apart.

Braided Edge

You'll need your braiding skills for this intricate, decorative pie—strips of dough are weaved into three large fishtail braids, which decorate the circumference of this fall pie. As a finishing touch, cut out dozens of stars, snowflakes, and crescents from the pie dough.

Lattice Pie Crust

Lattice is the classic pie crust design. This neatly woven lattice pattern ups the ante on a basic lattice. It's made by using both double and single strips of dough; they are laid on top of each other, going diagonally across the top of the pie.

Peek-a-Boo Pie Crust

You don't need any special equipment to craft this peek-a-boo pie. It's created by using a paring knife to make two-inch slits across the top of the dough.

Pinwheel Pie Crust

Create a spinner effect using our classic pâte brisée just as we did on this sour cherry pie. Individual strips of pie dough are twisted and then set into a spiral design around and around the top of the pie. It creates a dizzying, dazzling decorative pie.

Leaf Pie Crust

This decorative pie uses store-bought puff pastry. A paring knife is used to create leaf-like formations in the dough, which puff up and make the pie crust design even more pronounced as it bakes.

Cut-Out Pie Crust

Whether you want to keep it simple with small circles or festive with hearts or stars, depending on the occasion, you can use a small decorative cookie cutter to create evenly spaced cutouts all around the top layer of dough. The finishing touch? A dusting of powdered sugar on the filling helps the cutouts stand out.

Linzer Pie Crust

For an alternative to an intricately cut top crust, mimick a lattice pattern in crumbly shortbread crust that's sprinkled on top. It's an easy, no-fuss design that goes well with this low-maintenance sheet-pan linzer pie.

Diamond Pie Crust

Put your cookie cutters to work for pie! They can create serious pastry magic. This version is made by stamping out 16 dazzling diamonds from a 13-inch round of pie dough and arranging them on top of a classic apple filling.

Stencil Pie Crust

While this precise, stenciled top crust looks complicated to recreate, it's actually an easy pie crust design to make. It uses wooden popsicle sticks arranged on top of the dough. Cinnamon sugar is sprinkled on top, and when the popsicle sticks are removed, the dazzling design is revealed.

Pear-Shaped Cut-Outs

We can't imagine a more apt flavor combination for fall than pear and cranberry, It's a filling you want to show off, which is just what this clever pie design does. We used a one-inch petal cutter to cut out a decorative pattern in the center—and we saved the cutouts to use to decorate the edges of the pie.

Simple Pie Crust

It's one of the simpler styles in our collection, but this pie crust design is just as beautiful as its more detailed counterparts. Just cut five leaf-shaped vents in the top crust, insert a cinnamon stick in the center as a stem, freeze, and bake for an autumnal design.

Covered Cut-Out Pie Crust

Another detailed design that uses cookie cutters. Here, we used a fluted cookie cutter to cut out as many rounds of pie dough as possible and scattered them—delicately, of course—all across the top of this berry pie.

Scattered Leaves

Pecan pie is a single-crust classic, but a dozen leaves give it a unique fall accent. We used leaf cutters and made seven larger leaves for the outside edge and five smaller ones for the middle. Experiment and see how you like your autumn leaves arranged,

Sunburst Pie Crust

The stunning pie crust design on this chocolate sesame tart is made by cutting the top crust into 24 sections around a circle in the center, then twisting each strip like rays of the sun.

Patriotic Pie Crust

Show off your stars and stripes with this trio of red, white, and blue pies. One uses a star cookie cutter, another a small pastry wheel to cut away diagonal strips of dough, and the third uses a paring knife to freehand a design in the center and smaller vent-like cutouts around the edge.