Baking – the proper usage of a pie bird

If you have oven safe noodle bowls (ceramic, not plastic) then line them, as you describe with the foil, but do not remove them from the bowls. Bake your pie in the lined bowls, then remove the finished pies, with their aluminum "pan" intact. Or just make pasties...no pan required.

As you indicate you don't have oven safe bowls and it must be a pie, I decided to experiment, using the double foil idea. I have heavy duty foil. I used a double layer and lined a noodle bowl making sure that there was plenty of foil out past the edge. I then pressed another noodle bowl on top of the two sheets of foil to make sure all is acting as a unit. While the top bowl is still in place, crumple up the excess foil, making a rim. This is what will give you the strength you need. I would then take the top bowl out, and line the now stable foil pie tin with your pie pastry. Fill the pie and if there is a top crust, finish the pie. You can now take the pie out of the noodle bowl and bake it as usual, although I would certainly do it on a baking sheet.

The double foil is much stronger than you'd expect, but the stability comes from the rim you build with the excess foil hanging over the edge.

Here's the finished bowl with the two molding bowls.

There are two keys to this. First, work right on the pie and start in the middle. Second, fold strips back to make it easy to do the over/under.

This picture, from http://localfoods.about.com/od/preparationtips/ss/latticepiecrust_8.htm, is kind of the aha! moment for me. Fold half of the vertical strips back, lay a horizontal strip, unfold the folded strips and fold the ones that weren't, repeat.

Trim extra length from the strips, and use eggwash to glue them to the bottom part of the pie, where it comes up at the edges.

You'll have extra dough what with the trimmings and all - just use it to make a freeform gallete or the like. If you have no extra pie filling, use jam, or butter/brown sugar/raisins. Way less trouble than trying to make exactly the right amount of dough for the lattice.