How to Make a Lattice Pie Crust
A lattice pie crust is one of the prettiest ways to top a pie, but they can be tricky to pull off if your pie dough is less than awesome. Thankfully my absolutely no-fail Cream Cheese Pastry combined with some simple techniques will help you make a beautiful lattice-topped pie every single time.
What is a Lattice Pie Crust?
A lattice crust is a pie made with strips of pie dough woven together into a top for the pie. If you made those woven placemats for Thanksgiving at your elementary school from strips of paper, you already know basically how to make a lattice crust.
Lattice crusts don’t just add a lovely decorative element; the space between the strips of pie dough create natural steam vents, which are crucial to good pies. If a pie filling is too tightly sealed, the steam created from the filling as it cooks could cause the pie to explode in the oven.
Other ways to vent a pie other than a lattice crust include pie birds (fun, quirky, but expensive), or simple cut vents as you see in my Apple Strudel, or cut vents using cookie cutters (see my Mini Cherry Pies). You can also top a pie with crumb topping, which won’t seal a filling in as tightly ever as pastry as in my Cherry Crumble Pie.
Ingredients for a Lattice Pie Crust
Equipment for a Lattice Crust
- Rolling pin
- Sheet Pan: For chilling the pie dough strips.
- Parchment : beyond helpful for transferring in and out of the fridge
- Pie plate or a dinner plate the same size as the top of your pie plate
- Pencil
- Clear ruler : extremely helpful for cutting even sized strips of dough.
- Pastry brush : for brushing on egg wash and sticking the lattice to the bottom crust.
- Pizza wheel : the fastest, cleanest way to cut the strips of dough.
- Kitchen scissors : A clean, easy way to trim off excess dough from the strips.
How to Make a Lattice Pie Crust
- Make a Template: Place a piece of parchment over the top of the pie plate and use a pencil to trace around the circumference. Alternatively you could use a dinner plate the same size as the top of your pie plate if it’s easier to trace around for you. Flip the parchment over so that you won’t be rolling on the pencil but so that you can see the marks.
- Roll the Pie Crust for the Lattice Strips: After you’ve made your bottom crust, roll out the second piece of pastry dough into a thin rectangle on a piece of parchment 1/8″ thick. It’s up to you whether you roll the dough into a circle or a rectangle. I think it’s easier to work with a rectangle as you cut strips, but you decide.
- Cut the Lattice Strips: Use a clear ruler and a pizza wheel to cut the pastry into even strips. It’s up to you how wide to cut the strips. 3/4″ to 1″ strips are easy to work with, but you can cut them thinner or wider, or even cut strips in multiple sizes for design purposes. Beat the egg together with a teaspoon of water in a small cup for an egg wash.
- Chill the Lattice Strips: Slide the parchment paper onto a sheet pan and freeze for 5 minutes before weaving the strips.
- Weave the Lattice Top: Lay out strips of the dough vertically, using the circle you traced as a guide. Lift up every other strip and weave in a strip. Think about numbering the strips 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 etc. Lift the even numbered strips to start. To start the next row, lift the odd numbered strips before weaving in a second strip. If needed, join strips together by lightly pressing them together (I try to keep my joined strips under the top strips going the opposite direction). If they don’t stick, brush a little egg wash to the strips before pressing them together. When you have enough woven strips to fill up the circle you traced, chill the lattice top for 10 minutes on a sheet tray.
- Topping the Pie: Place the chilled lattice top on top of your filled pie. Trim away excess dough from the edge of each strip, leaving enough that you can press it to the bottom crust. It’s good to trim each strip about 1/4″ to 1/2″ past the inner rim of the crust. That way you have enough to fold onto the side of the crust. If the dough is resisting sticking to itself, paint a little of the egg wash to the inside rim of the bottom crust.
- Finish the Pie Crust: Finish off your lattice crust by brushing the strips with egg wash and a sprinkling of coarse sugar. From here, chill the pie 15-20 minutes before baking. A cold lattice crust will hold its shape.
Troubleshooting a Lattice Crust
- Stretched out strips (Dough too warm): If your strips of pie crust are stretching at all, it’s likely that the pie dough is too warm. Be sure to chill the strips of dough BEFORE you begin to weave them. 10-15 minutes in the fridge or 5 minutes in the freezer will do a lot to make the strips easier to handle.
- Dough too dry: Be light with your flour when you roll out the dough. Rolling on parchment will keep you from having to add too much flour. If the dough is relatively cold, it will be easy to roll and only require a sprinkling of flour to keep the dough from sticking. Using my Cream Cheese Pastry as your pie dough, this will help as well. This dough NEVER cracks because it has the perfect amount of moisture in it.
- Dough won’t stick: If you’re having a hard time getting the dough to stick to itself, paint a little egg wash on the inside rim of the pie. Though the cream cheese pastry generally sticks to itself fairly well, cold dough doesn’t stick as well. Egg wash will fix the problem every time.
FAQ about Lattice Pie Crusts
- How many strips do I need to cut?: This will depend on the size of your pie and how wide you cut your strips. The narrower you cut the strips, the more you will need. A mini pie will need only a couple strips in a very small space. For mini pies, it’s very efficient to make a rectangle lattice top and to then cut out round of the lattice with biscuit cutters.
- Do I need to use a ruler?: No, absolutely not, though a ruler will help you make even sized strips, which will give you a beautiful, professional-looking finish. A clear ruler , like what quilters use is very easy for this task since you can cut the entire strip in one go.
- I was taught to weave the lattice on top of the pie. Why do you do this differently?: Making the lattice top apart from the pie gives you a lot more flexibility in shaping the dough. If the strips touch the filling, they can create problems with not adhering to the dough well. Also, if the dough gets warm at all, the strips can stretch out of shape. By working off the pie, you can chill the strips as needed to make them more easy to handle.
- Can I Make a Lattice Top Ahead of Time?: You can make a lattice top up to a day ahead of time. Prep your bottom crust and lattice top separately. Chill the lattice top on a piece of parchment, covered by a second piece of parchment to keep it from drying out. Chill the bottom crust in the pie plate, covered. When you’re ready to bake, fill the pie and top it with the lattice top.
- How do I get a shiny crust?: Egg wash, my friend. I tell my kids and my students that the only things we don’t egg wash are things we want to look ugly, and we don’t make ugly bakes! While that’s obviously not always true, it’s mostly true, and it’s true here. The egg wash will help the crust to brown in a lovely way with a lacquered finish, plus it helps the coarse sugar to stick, which always adds a nice extra crunch.
