I was recently invited to do a baking challenge by another blogger – a “Showstopper Pie” challenge, to be exact! Since Valentine’s Day is around the corner, I thought it would be fun to tie in the holiday and give my pie a theme.
This past year has been one especially full of turmoil, and my goal is to always share love and positivity. That is where I came up with the idea for my “Love Wins” Pie design! I had an idea in my head of what the writing should look like, but knew it wouldn’t be successful if I were to free-hand it. So, I turned to my Adobe Illustrator skills to measure and design my pie, creating life-size stencils to trace.
I did a rough “sketch” in Illustrator including the different heart sizes and font I envisioned. I measured it out to fit perfectly in a 9-inch pie plate. If you want to try my stencils, you can use the button below to download them! Simply print the PDF, cut out the letters and hearts and lay out as desired on your dough. Then, trace with a small sharp knife (like a paring knife or Exacto). You will see I took some creative liberties and traveled away from the design I started in Illustrator. However, feel free to do the same too, but if you follow the exact pattern and shapes there it should lay out just right!
The Recipe
For the pie dough, I used my favorite Martha Stewart “Perfect Pie Crust” recipe. I have tried so many pie doughs, and this one is super easy and I find it very soft and enjoyable. The secret to keeping it soft is to use extra cold butter, and handle it as little as possible. This recipe is great for people with no patience (like me, ha ha) as it comes together quickly in a food processor.
For the pie itself, I used my favorite Williams Sonoma Blueberry Pie recipe, simply subbing in fresh raspberries in the place of blueberries! At first I thought it was a strange idea to cover a crumble-topping pie with pie dough, but honestly the result was perfectly tasty. If you don’t have a particularly sweet tooth, you could do 1/2 the crumble topping, or leave it off entirely. Of course, if you have your own favorite pie filling, you can use that too!
For the coloring on the pie, I used my favorite Wilton Food Coloring Kit, which has SO MANY beautiful colors! If you want similar colors but in natural form, you could use beet juice, or even juice from the raspberries themselves.
Final Result
Here is how the pie turned out – honestly I was quite pleased with it, especially never really having tried pie art before! The hearts would be so much easier with cookie cutters… however it didn’t seem sustainable to go buy new cutters just for a pie challenge. It did make me think to keep an eye on my Buy Nothing Project Group to see if any interesting cookie cutters float around to inspire my next challenge!
Here are a few other items I love to use when baking pies. I couldn’t live without my pie shield!
*Disclaimer* I am an Amazon affiliate and get a tiny kickback if you purchase anything from my links… I only share things that I use and love, and it is just a small avenue for me to earn money to support my blog as I go.
