[1] Decorate with mini cookies and you’ve got a two-in-one dessert—plus a pretty pie garnish (photos # 1, #2, #3 and #7 © Williams Sonoma).

[2] These “punches” produce mini cookies from conventional pie or cookie dough. They are available seasonally at Williams Sonoma and elsewhere.

[3] Here, the cutouts are used to decorate the rim of the pie, as well as the center.

[4] If you don’t want to decorate the cake with cookies, you can keep the cookies separate and then add one to each slice as you serve the pie. This way, everyone is sure to get a cookie (photo © Nescafe)!

[5] A cutout design on the rim of the pie (photo © Dilyara Garifullina | Unsplash).

[6] If you have mini cookie cutters, you don’t need a pie punch (photo © Joanna Lopez | Unsplash).

[7] You also can use the pie punches to decorate other types of pie tops.

[8] A different pumpkin pie garnish: meringue, pumpkin seeds and streusel (photo © Bien Cuit Bakery | Brooklyn).

Here’s a two-in-one dessert for Thanksgiving and anytime you serve a pumpkin pie.

Because pumpkin pie falls into the category of custard pie—no top crust and a smooth surface—it lends itself to decoration.

How about decorating it with mini, seasonal cookies?

You can purchase seasonal “pie punches,” small cutters which stamp out shapes in pie or cookie dough (photo #2). Fall shapes include acorns, leaves, pumpkins, and turkeys. Here’s a selection from Williams Sonoma.

If you have mini cookie cutters, those work, too (photo #5).

Most people punch out shapes from pie dough. It’s easier, because you already have leftover dough from the pie crust.

But we like to use cookie dough, for better flavor. This can be almost as easy: Just buy a tube of sugar cookie dough and roll the slices thinly.

But it’s not just cookies. Here are an additional 25 pumpkin pie garnishes that you can add to homemade or store-bought pumpkin pie.

There are more pumpkin pie recipes below, plus other yummy pumpkin desserts.

Need a reason to enjoy pumpkin pie beyond Thanksgiving? Well actually, we never need a reason. It’s North America’s second-favorite pie, right behind apple pie, according to Taste Atlas. But here are official celebration days:

 
 
THE HISTORY OF PUMPKIN PIE

Pumpkins are a new world fruit, first cultivated in Central America around 5,500 B.C.E. Spanish explorers brought them back to Spain in the early 16th century. The first known mention in Europe dates to 1536.

Within a few decades pumpkins were grown all around England, where they were called “pumpions,” after the French “pompon,” a reference to their round form. The name originated from the Greek word for large melon: “pepon.” The French changed “pepon” to “pompon.” The English further changed it to “pumpion” or “pompion.”

So English people knew about pumpkins before some of them voyaged to the New World.

Northeastern Native American tribes grew squash and pumpkins. The Native Americans brought pumpkins as gifts to the first settlers, and taught them many uses for pumpkin.

The Mayflower colonists received pumpkins, as they came to call them, as gifts from the Wampanoag Native Americans, who knew them as savory preparations. They were made into pie and bread, as well, by the colonists.

As wheat supplies were limited, they made a version of crustless pumpkin pie by stewing pumpkins or filling a hollowed-out pumpkin with milk, honey and spices, then baking it in hot ashes.

A year later, when the 50 surviving colonists were joined by a group of 90 Wampanoag for a three-day harvest celebration, it’s likely that pumpkin was on the table in some form [source].

In Europe and America, pumpkin pie existed in numerous forms, only a few of which we would recognize today—pumpkin custard in a bottom crust.

 
 
MORE PUMPKIN PIE RECIPES

 
PLUS: The Best Squash For Pumpkin Pie

 
 
MORE PUMPKIN DESSERT & SNACK RECIPES

 
 
DRINKS RECIPES