Holiday Gift Guide: My Favorite Pie-Baking Tools

Friends, if you haven’t started your holiday shopping yet, it’s time to get on it! Last November I put together a gift guide of my top 12 cookbooks. You all seemed to enjoy it, so this year I’ve got another one for you — my favorite pie-baking tools!

Pie Pans

First up, pie pans.

There are a lot of opinions out there about which material makes the best pie pan. And do you know what? I think they all work great. Here are the ones I use the most.

Glass Pie Dishes

I have this glass pie dish from Pyrex (top left) and another one from Anchor Hocking (bottom right). When I first started baking pies, I used glass pie pans almost exclusively. I liked them because I could see if the bottom crust was done or if it still needed a few minutes in the oven. Pro tip: if you’re checking the bottom of your pie crust this way, be careful not to tip it too far or you’ll end up with your pie on the floor. I may or may not have found that out the hard way.

I still like my glass pie pans, but I’ve added a couple more options to my collection since those early days.

Metal Pie Pans

Metal pie pans are probably the most commonly used type. I have this one from NordicWare, and I love it. It comes with a sweet domed lid, so if you make a pie that has a big mound of meringue or whipped cream on top, it won’t get squashed when you bring it to Grandma’s house for the holidays. This is a 10-inch pie dish, so be aware that if you use it for a recipe that calls for a 9-in pie pan, your pie will be a bit shallower and might bake more quickly.

Stoneware or Ceramic Pie Dishes

I also have this sweet stoneware pie dish from Anthropologie. It’s older, so I couldn’t find it online, but they have some similar ones on their site. Mine was a gift from a dear friend, and I think of her every time I use it. Just think — if you buy the baker in your life a pretty pie dish like this, they’ll not only get a sweet pie dish, but fond memories of you as well.

There’s one more I’d recommend that I don’t actually own yet. I’ve had my eye on this ceramic pie dish from Emile Henry for YEARS. (The red one, if any of my friends or family are reading this and want to buy me a gift…wink, wink).

Rolling Pins

As for rolling pins, I have two that I use all the time, and both are wooden. The first belonged to my Grandma (she made the BEST pumpkin pie). I love it because it makes me feel connected to her every time I bake. You can see a few spots on it where my Grandpa fixed it for her when it broke. It was well loved, to say the least.

The other rolling pin I use is a French-style dowel rolling pin. It’s a bit different than a traditional rolling pin in that it doesn’t have handles: it’s basically a giant wooden dowel. If you’re used to using one with handles, it takes some getting used to. However, it’s a lot easier on the wrists if you’re rolling out a lot of pie (or cookie) dough.

Lots of bakers also like to use marble rolling pins. They have two main benefits: 1-they’re nice and heavy so you don’t have to work as hard to roll out the dough; and 2 – the marble stays cool, which helps your pie dough stay cooler while you’re working with it. I’ve tried using a marble rolling pin, and it worked great, but I still prefer my wooden ones to anything else.

Pie Weights, Pastry Cutters, Pie Birds, and Pie Shields

Ok, now for a few miscellaneous tools. None of these are absolutely necessary, but they all make your pie baking a lot easier.

Pie Weights

First up: Pie weights. Pie weights help keep your pie crust from bubbling up when you’re par-baking or pre-baking it without filling (i.e., “blind baking“).

I have these ceramic pie weights (the little white balls in the photo above). They work great, but fair warning — to have enough for a typical-sized pie, you’ll need to get a few packages of them (at least). I only have one, so I really only use them for mini pies. Ideally, for pie weights to do their best work, you’ll need enough to fill the pie pan to the rim.

Another option is to skip the pie weights altogether and use dried beans, rice, or sugar to blind bake.

Regardless of which type of weight you use, don’t forget to first line the inside of your pie crust with parchment paper before filling it with the pie weights. It’ll be a lot easier to remove the weights after it’s baked.

Pastry Cutter

Next up are pastry cutters. A pastry cutter helps you cut the butter, shortening, or other fat into the flour to get nice, evenly-sized butter chunks. I have this pastry cutter, and love it. It’s all stainless steel, so it cuts through the butter well and is also really easy to clean. I’d highly recommend it.

Pie Bird

Another fun tool for the pie baker in your life is a porcelain pie bird. This little cutie sits inside the pie and works to vent steam out while it bakes, so that you don’t end up with pie filling spilling out into your oven. (Or, at least, you have less spillage.) I was skeptical about this tool at first, but I have to say, it really does work well. Plus, it’s cute! I have this pie bird, but I also think this Harry-Potter-themed one is SO cute!

Pie Shield

And lastly, every pie baker needs something to cover the edges of the pie so they don’t burn (as the edges of the crust will bake faster than the rest of the pie). You can certainly get by with pieces of aluminum foil, but I’ve found that this silicone pie shield works better and is much easier to handle.

Pie Cookbooks

And if the pie baker in your life already has all of these tools, you can’t go wrong with buying them a new pie cookbook. I have two favorites:

Erin McDowell’s Book On Pie and Williams-Sonoma’s Pie & Tart Cookbook. (Note: Sadly, the Williams-Sonoma one seems to be out of print, but you may be able to find a good used copy online.)

And those, my friends, are all of my favorite pie-baking tools. I hope you found one or two gift ideas for your pie-baking loved ones.

Happy holiday shopping!