Pies are an integral part of the holiday tradition in fall and winter. Many, like pumpkin, only really require one bottom crust, but as good as they are it is hard to beat a perfectly made double crust fruit pie, like a classic apple. I know that I am not the only one who puts a few pies into the holiday baking schedule, and since that schedule can be a busy one, it’s nice to have a few tools to help things along. This Apples & Leaves Pie Top Cutter from Nordicware is just one of these tools. It is basically a big cookie cutter that lets your make a gorgeous design on your pie crust in seconds. It’s reversible, giving you an apple pattern on one side and a leaf pattern on the other. You’ll still have to crimp the edges of the crust yourself, but it really helps to make a pie get a bakery-quality look to it with virtually no effort (and no heartbreak from trying to hand-cut designs, as I have in the past).

This week, I’m giving away one of these Apples & Leaves Pie Top Cutters along with a copy of my book, The Baking Bites Cookbook! There are a couple of pie recipes in the book, as well as a very good pie crust recipe, so it’s a good place to start your pie baking if you don’t end up starting with one of the recipes already on my site.

To win, just leave a comment on this post telling me what you favorite type of pie is on this post by Friday, November 20th. There are no penalties for picking a pie that doesn’t need a double crust. If you want to increase your odds of winning, Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter and you’ll get an extra entry! Leave a comment to let me know you Tweeted, or make sure to include @bakingbites so I see it! No matter how you enter, the winner will be selected randomly from all the entries. Don’t forget to include your e-mail on the form where you leave a comment (not in the comment itself) so I can contact you if you’re the winner!

The last giveaway I held, for the Mini Pumpkin Cheesecake Pan and another copy of my book, was won by Amy at Baking and Mistaking. I neglected to make the announcement on the site sooner (although I sent off the prizes). Congrats!

Gingerbread houses may have some competition this year for edible Christmas decorations. Williams Sonoma has just released a new, limited edition Snowy Village Cakelet Pan for the season. The pan bakes up six small cakes in the shapes of show-covered fairytale homes. The cast-iron pan is made by NordicWare (as are just about all of Williams Sonoma’s special edition pans), so it’s a heavy-weight pan. It also has a nonstick finish to help preserve some of the details of the cakes when you release them onto a cooling rack before baking.

Most cakes are going to look cute on a cake stand, these cakes can actually become part of your decor. You can set them out at the beginning of the evening during a holiday event and leave them out to be admired before serving. They don’t need much decoration, but a dusting of powdered sugar will give them some “snow” and a few dots of colored icing and you’ll have a string of Christmas lights going around the entire village!

While pumpkins fit perfectly into Halloween just as they are, jack o’ lanterns have an even more perfect fit because Halloween is really the only holiday where the carved pumpkins are showcased. There are lots of pumpkin-shaped baking pans, like the Pumpkin Patch Pan and the Mini Pumpkin Cheesecake Pan, but there aren’t a whole lot of pans that incorporate the jack o’ lantern face into the design, leaving you to rely on frosting to achieve a spooky look. Fortunately, there are a couple of great looking pans that have pumpkin faces molded right in, so all you need to do is bake and serve.

The pan pictured above is the John Wright Pumpkin Muffin Pan. It’s a cast-iron pan that has distinctly cut shapes and bakes six large muffins. It also works well for cornbread, especially if you like the “crust” that cornbread can get when it cooks in cast iron. Wilton makes two Jack o’ Lantern pans. The first is a Petite Jack-O-Lantern Pan, an aluminum pan that bakes bite-sized pumpkins and can be used for cookies or mini cakes. The second is the Pumpkin Faces Pan, which is made of silicone for easy removal of the muffins or cakes when they’re done, preserving their scary smiles without worrying about your treats sticking to the pan.

Platefuls of Halloween baked goods and buckets of Halloween candy aren’t the only things that you can keep around the kitchen as you get into the spirit of Halloween. Something like a Bloody Evidence Chef’s Knife is both a scary, funny and useful prop that you can add to the knife rack. The knife is a real chef’s knife with fired-on blood spatter that will not come off during washing or use, and is completely food safe. Imagine coming out of the kitchen with a big pie to slice up in one hand and this knife in the other! I would think that it would also make a fun gift for fans of the Showtime TV show, Dexter.

Miniature cheesecakes are a great way introduce both portion control and cuteness into dessert. You can always bake them in a muffin pan, but this Mini Pumpkin Cheesecake Pan gives you a few advantages that regular muffin pan doesn’t. You don’t need any paper liners for these pans because the bottoms are removable. All you need to do is loosen the sides of the cheesecake and push up on the bottom of each cavity, and the mini cheesecake will slide right out. The sides of the pan are nonstick, too, which really makes this easy to use.. Also, the cavities are pumpkin-shaped, making them perfect for fall and winter cheesecakes, even if they’re not pumpkin flavored.

As it so happens, I have one of these lovely Chicago Metallic Mini Pumpkin Cheesecake Pans to give away this week, and since my cookbook will be shipping in just a few days, I’m going to include a FREE copy of the cookbook along with the pan, making this a giveaway extra special. Now, there are no mini pumpkin cheesecake recipes in the book, but the pan comes with a good basic pumpkin cheesecake recipe to get you started with your pan.

To win, just leave a comment telling me what you favorite cheesecake flavor is on this post by Friday, October 23rd . A winner will be selected randomly. Don’t forget to include your e-mail on the form where you leave a comment (not in the comment itself) so I can contact you if you’re the winner!

Update: This Contest is now closed!

Shaped pans mean that you don’t need to spend a lot of time decorating your baked goods, since they already come out in a holiday-ready shape. This is certainly true of Wilton’s Mini Pumpkin and Ghost Pan which  bakes up a half-dozen mini-muffin sized pumpkin and ghost shapes for Halloween. The pan itself is nonstick and, though both the pumpkin and ghost have some facial details on the pan, the details on the pan aren’t so precise that they make it difficult to remove the spooky treats when it’s time to take them out of the oven.

Putting the shape aside, you can use this pan just as you would use any other mini muffin pan, filling it with a recipe for miniature muffins, Chocolate Espresso Cups or even a cake mix and baking them up as you would if the shapes were simply round. You can leave the cakes/cookies/muffins plain or make up a batch of frosting to ensure they’re trick-or-treat ready. The only downside is that, since the pan only bakes six at a time, you’ll need to do several batches to use up all your batter. Fortunately, the pan cools down very quickly (so you can fill it up and send it into the oven with minimal down time) and the vast majority of batters can stand to sit around on the counter already mixed and be baked off in batches without any ill effects to what you’re baking.