American Flag Pie

Bake an American Flag Pie, the ultimate July 4th dessert. It's great for parties! This patriotic slab pie serves up to 20 people for Summer cookouts, backyard barbeques, and picnics.

To get the flag shape, this fruit pie is baked in a large sheet pan. Use homemade or store-bought crusts. I have both blueberry and strawberry filling recipes for you or try cherry pie fillings. A party-sized dessert pie will be the star of your Independence Day celebration, Happy 4th of July...

How To Bake An American Flag July 4th Pie

This patriotic red, white, and blueberry pie recipe has blueberry and strawberry filling. You can use any fresh fruit filling you like, I love how the colors are from our American flag. All the ingredients are easy to find at local grocery stores.

Homemade Pie Crust Recipe

• 5 pie crusts 4 pie crusts - for the bottom crust and 1 pie crust for stars and stripes
• ¼ cup fine sugar
• Two 13 x 18 large sheet pans
• small star cookie cutter
• ruler
• parchment paper
• pizza cutter wheel
• clean scissors

1. Sift all dry ingredients; flour, sugar, and salt. Cut the butter with a pastry blender or cutter into the mixture (or use 2 knives going in opposite directions). Next, add ice water and form a ball, mixing with your hands until it comes together. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap, in two halves, and chill for 60 minutes.
2. Prepare the large sheet pans or large cookie sheets. Lightly spray one sheet pan with coconut nonstick spray, and line the other with baking parchment paper. Make sure they will fit in your fridge to chill the dough before baking.

Pie Filling Recipes

PRO TIP: Try any red white and blue fruits you like cherries, raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, plums, or apples. You could also make a mixed berry pie to keep it simple.

Blueberry Pie Filling

• 2 cups (1 pint) fresh blueberries (or frozen blueberries)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch or tapioca flour (one minute)
• 1 ½ teaspoon of lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

Rinse the blueberries in cold water, in a medium bowl mix the blueberries, sugar, tapioca flour, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Set aside, and keep the blueberry filling separate from the strawberry filling.

Strawberry Pie Filling

• 2 quarts fresh strawberries, hulled and quartered (8 cups, 4 - 16 oz boxes)
• ½ cup sugar
• 4 teaspoons cornstarch or tapioca flour
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

1. Rinse the strawberries in cold water and pull the stems using a straw, push from the bottom of the strawberry to pop the stem off the top. Cut the strawberries in half.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the cut strawberries and mix in the sugar, tapioca flour, salt, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Set aside, and keep the strawberry filling separate from the blueberry filling.

How To Hull Strawberries

1. Rinse the strawberries in cool water.
2. Push a sturdy straw inside the strawberry up from the bottom to pop the stem off the top!

Blind Bake Bottom Pie Crust

Prepare the bottom crust. On a floured work surface, roll out pie crusts with a rolling pin, lay them on the sprayed sheet pan, and piece together four crusts to form a larger piece of pastry for one bottom crust.

As you work, fit them into the large sheet pan which is your pie dish. You can bake in regular 9" round pie tins and make a smaller version, but this makes a lot of filling so it will most likely bake two pies.

PRO TIP: Poking holes in unbaked pie dough, crackers, flatbread, or pastry is called docking. This helps the steam that builds up during baking escape, so the baked dough stays even and flat and doesn't puff up.

PRO TIP: Pie crust bakes properly when very chilled going into a hot oven and makes a flaky crust. If your sheet pans don't fit in the fridge, set them on ice packs to keep the dough as cold as possible before baking!

Use a sharp knife or pizza wheel to cut pieces and patch together the excess dough to make a full bottom crust. Gently press them together and up the sides of the pan. Use a fork to poke small holes (aka docking) all over the bottom crust of the sheet pan, this helps the crust lay flat during the pre-bake or blind-bake as it is called. Sprinkle fine sugar on the bottom crust. Chill that crust in the fridge until ready to bake. Heat the oven to 425 degrees.

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Make the Stars and Stripes

Use the 5th pie crust to cut the stars and stripes. Cut 25 small stars out with a 1" star shaped small cookie cutter.

Using a clean ruler, lay it on the crust and use a knife or pizza wheel to cut 3 short stripes the width of the ruler and 9" long wide strips for the stripes of the flag.

Reroll the dough using the scraps, and use a clean ruler, lay it on the dough, and cut with a knife, pizza cutter, or pastry wheel 3 long strips the width of the ruler and 16" long. 

Lay all the stars and stripes on the parchment lined baking sheet as you go, and sprinkle with fine sugar.

If possible, re-chill your cut stars and stripes in the fridge prior to baking on the sheet pans for an hour.

If large sheet pans don't fit in your fridge, set the pans on ice packs to keep the dough as cold as possible before baking.

Crusts bake properly when very chilled going into a hot oven which helps bake a flaky crust.

PRO TIP: By sprinkling sugar on this sugary baked pie crust, it does two things. One it sweetens the crust, and second, gives it a nice crunch.

How To Bake A Flag Pie

1. Bake both the bottom crust and the stars and stripes at 425 degrees for 15 minutes until the crusts are just turning golden brown. Pull both pie crusts out of the oven.  Leave the oven heat on.
2. On the bottom crust, spread blueberry filling into the upper left corner in a small rectangle of the baked pie crust for the blue part of the flag. Next, add the strawberry filling into the pie. (Don't add the stars and stripes yet)
3. Bake the bottom crust and the filling at 425 for 25-30 minutes, until the berries are bubbling.

Decorate & Serve The Flag Pie

1. Now finish decorating, place the baked stars on top of the blueberry section, add the 3 shorter stripes to the right of the blueberries, and the 3 longer stripes on the strawberries at the bottom of the pie, and you are done!
2. Serve with whip cream and or vanilla ice cream.

Slab Pie FAQs

More July 4th Desserts

Take a look at my collection of 100+ Patriotic Fourth of July Desserts to make your July 4th, Memorial Day, Flag Day, or Labor Day celebration spectacular. Pies, tarts, cookies, no-bake desserts, cakes, cupcakes, trifles, cheesecakes, ice cream sandwiches, popsicles, or bake a classic American dessert like Apple Pie and so many more perfect dessert ideas.

And make sure you check out this 100+ Ultimate July 4th Party Guide! It is full of recipe ideas to make your cookout, picnic, or party one to remember.

Bake a patriotic American Flag Cake with red, white, and blue marbled cake inside and bakery-style frosting.

Oh, and before I go... In the heat of summer, did you know you can keep your house cool and bake on your grill? Bake one of my other delicious patriotic desserts, a Blueberry Pie Outdoors right on your grill!

And cool everyone down with an Ice Cream Cake, it is a beloved family recipe, and so fun for the 4th.