Pastry Maple Leaves

Below is a line drawing we made up to help in making maple pastry leaves. Feel free to copy it, print it and cut it out as a template. In rolling a single-crust pie, there is generally enough dough left over to make one or two of these leaves. The effect is impressive.

After you have lined your pie dish and put it back in the fridge to rest, bring together the trimmings. If they are very dry and flour-coated, consider spraying them lighty with a mister. Collect them together in a small disk, maintaining the layering as much as you can, then smash/smear them together until they they become one mass again. Consider letting this dough rest in the refrigerator for several minutes.

Roll the dough out to the desired thickness. Use your template or cutout to cut out leaves. We find a paper cutout (throwaway) works fine, and use a small sharp paring knife by inserting the point at the inside corners of the leaf then cutting down along each edge, straight down without pulling through the dough to keep it from stretching. Then using the tip of the paring knife from the dull side, score some veins into the leaf. Chill the leaves thoroughly.

Brush the tops leaves carefully with a whole-egg egg wash (a whole egg beaten well with a pinch of salt, or a dash of milk or cream) to give them a darker, glossy look. Bake on a parchment-covered sheet, to desired doneness.