Designing your pie’s vents is simple and effective. All pies give off steam in the oven and that steam needs to escape. Before you start considering leaf designs and woven crusts, try arranging the vent slits in a decorative pattern. Top the pie with a full sheet of flaky pastry. Crimp the edges shut, as usual. Lightly egg wash the entire surface of the crust. (If you do this after cutting the vents, it’s likely the egg will drip into the vents and seal them shut. Make sure to egg wash first.) Using a sharp paring knife, or a serrated paring knife, cut slits all the way through the top crust. Try a snowflake pattern, a simple star pattern, or draw the fruit that’s in the pie filling. Sprinkle it with some sugar and bake.

She’s a classic. A lattice pie will always be the standard for tempting and comforting. The easiest way to do a true woven lattice crust without the strips deteriorating into a sticky mess is to build the lattice off of the pie. Cut the pie crust into strips, wide or thin depending on the look you’re going for. Weave the crust strips on a cutting board or cardboard circle that is slightly larger than your pie’s top diameter. Make sure there is a little flour under the lattice so it doesn’t stick to the cutting board, it needs to be mobile. Put the woven crust into the freezer for five minutes or so, until it firms up. Once your pie has been filled, the oven is preheated, and you’re just about ready to bake, egg wash the outer edge of the bottom crust. This will help seal the lattice when it lands. Take the lattice out of the freezer and slide the whole thing on top of the filled pie. The lattice will be frozen together so it can move in one piece, and the flour underneath should allow for easy sliding. If you don’t want to weave pastry, just do a lazy lattice. Crimp the edges to seal and egg wash the top. Bake as usual.

You like to put your own spin on things, or maybe the lattice crust is just slightly worn-out. Make a plaid design using the same technique of weaving on a cutting board, and chilling it before transferring the crust to the pie. The plaid design only differs from a traditional lattice by cutting a few wide strips and several more thin strips, like in this pie’s main design. Place the strips in regular intervals and weave them. Egg wash in the same order of operations as the lattice crust, and enjoy your fancy plaid pie.

This is one of my favorite pie toppers because the only skill it takes is knowing how to stop before you make too many cut-outs. Roll out a top crust, or unravel one from a box, and cut out a big shape, or take any sort of small cutter that you have to make a pattern. Use cookie cutters, small biscuit cutters, or the end of a piping tip. Try making decorative polka dots, stars, cherries, or small apples. Once you’ve cut out as many shapes as you want, You can place the top crust on your pie with the help of the rolling pin or, for fragile designs, use the same technique mentioned above. Create the design and chill the pie crust on a cutting board by putting it in the freezer for five or ten minutes. Once it’s set, egg wash the top edge of the bottom crust, slide the top crust off of the cutting board, and straight onto the pie filling. Crimp the edges to seal and egg wash the top. Bake as usual.

Alternatively to using the negatives, use the cut-out positives to create a pattern along the edge, or an attractive layered design. There are a few options, lay down a full top crust and apply cut-outs, lay the cut-outs over an open-faced pie, along the edges, or some combination. This design works best on thick, chunky fillings, or pie fillings that aren’t particularly liquidy. Apple pies, pear pies, pecan pies, or combination fruit and nut pies will have a supportive surface to lay the cutouts on. Custard-based pies like pumpkin, coconut, or some thinner recipes for sweet potato pie will be too loose to hold the small designs, and they might get swallowed up during baking.

If you like the idea of having cute layered cut designs on your pie, but you’re making a custard-based pie like pumpkin or sweet potato, you can have it all! Instead of placing the raw pastry cut-outs over the raw pie filling before it goes in the oven, bake the shapes and the pie separately. Then you can press on a dynamic 3-D fall leaf design, or one that can break the boundaries of the pie’s edges without melting off in the oven. Besides defying gravity, a benefit of pre-baking the shapes is that you get a more even bake. The designs are making even contact with the sheet pan as opposed to a semi liquid filling. This ensures that the texture is crispy all the way through, instead of partially gummy on the bottom.

Summon your inner 4th grader (or just have your resident 4th grader work on this) and make a few pie crust braids. This design can be used alone or in combination with the lattice and plaid designs. Cut three long strips of pastry dough, each about ¼-inch thick. Lay them next to each other and press the three top ends together into one spot, kind of the same way you start a challah, or a 3 strand braid of anything. In a simple braid, the outer strands take turns going over the middle strand. At the end of the braid, press the ending tips together to seal it. Make as many braids as you want. Lay them straight across, along the outer edge or incorporate into the lattice design.

Want some color? Make a bountiful autumn leaf-scape with some food coloring and a small paintbrush instead. You can get creative with painting scenes directly onto the top crust, or just write “Eat Me” on the pastry. Use this technique in combination with pie crust cut-outs for an embossed effect. Make pie-paint by cracking a couple egg yolks into separate small bowls, then add a couple drops of food coloring to them. Mix it up and now you have your edible pie paint. To paint on a pie crust, top the pie as you normally would with a double crust. Go ahead and paint directly onto the top crust, or onto the cut-out shapes. If you’re using cut outs, make sure to dab some egg wash on the back, so the cutouts will stick where you place them.

Twists are an alternative to straight strips, and it can be just what you need to add a touch of pizzazz. Use twists to make a variation on a lattice or add it as one of the threads in the plaid design. You can do a single twist or twist two strips together to make a knitted pattern. Cut thin strips of pie crust and twist. You can do that by twisting both ends in opposite directions, or pressing one end to the countertop, so it sticks, and twisting the end until you’ve achieved the swirl you like. If you’re sticking it to the outer edge of the bottom pie crust, be sure to egg wash that rim first so the twist will stick and hold its shape.

If you can’t decide between the lattice, cut-outs, braids, twists, painting, and layering, put it all together to make one dazzling pie. It’s a great way to increase interest, and show-off your pie skills. But before you start chopping pie dough, try to go in with a plan. Pretend you’re drawing a graphic for your pie on the Great British Bake Off, and sketch out each twist and braid. This will keep you from cutting too much of one type of design, and help you plan out how much pastry dough you’ll need. Take a tip from the lattice pie and build it all, or most of it, off of the pie on a cutting board. Then you can adjust pieces or remove components altogether if you change your mind.

This pie crust decoration looks more difficult to make than it is. The spoke design involves many strips of pie crust laid straight across the entire surface, and each strip is laid at a slight angle off of the last. The design goes around one full time, which means the pastry overlaps one full time making it look like the spokes of a bicycle. Use a small round cutter to hold the space in the center if that helps you keep from veering off. My tips for this design are: don’t cut the strips too thin, and bake the pie thoroughly. Keep the strips about ⅓-inch to ½-inch wide.

When the pie bakes, a lot of things happen. The filling bubbles up and the pie crust wilts as the butter melts, so if you cut the strips too thinly then it’s likely they’ll shrivel up and maybe get devoured by the bubbling fruit filling. Bake the pie thoroughly, maybe an extra five minutes, to ensure the center mass of pie crust cooks through. You can see in the pictures that the strips cross over each other in the center. If you lightly cook the pie, you will be disappointed by the raw, pasty mess hiding below the surface. If you fear the edges are burning, cut a foil ring and lay it just over the outer edge so the center can continue browning.