Apple And Pumpkin Pies Cooling On A Windowsill Coloring Page

Two pies sit side by side on a stone sill in an open window, one with a latticed top and one with pastry leaves cut into it, steam rising from both. The detailed treatment gives the pastry a crimped edge drawn notch by notch, adds a checked cloth under the dishes, and fills the view through the window with a suggestion of orchard. There is more small work here than the subject suggests.

Baked pastry occupies a narrow color range and that is what makes it interesting. Use one light golden brown as a base across all the crust, then go back and deepen only the raised edges and the tops of the lattice strips, since those are the parts that brown first in a real oven. The apple filling showing through the lattice should end up the strongest color on the page.

Pumpkin pie as Americans know it is a custard, and it would have been unfamiliar to the early colonists, who had no wheat flour to spare for pastry. They hollowed the pumpkins out instead, filled them with milk and spices, and baked them whole in the ashes.