All the pies I have ever made in my life have been pumpkin and vegan, so I've been waiting all summer to try my hand at my first berry pie. To start out on my wild blackberry pie adventure, I picked approximately 5 cups of ripe blackberries. This didn't take very long but it did dye my hands red and I definitely got a few cuts. Yummy berries! I gently rinsed them in a colander.
Next stop: pie crust! Most people buy premade crusts at the store, but I prefer to be in charge of what I eat and what goes into it! Here is my Pie Crust Pastry Dough: (Please be aware, all my measurements are merely estimates - I feel things out instinctively while cooking.) I start out with 3 1/2 cups of flour, a sprinkling of Himalayan pink salt, around a half cup of both organic butter and spectrum naturals organic vegetable shortening and around 2/3 cup of cold water.
Mix it and work it all together until the dough forms. Roll into two balls, flatten, wrap em, and fridge them for 2 hours. Make dinner, take a nap, drink some wine or go for a hike. (My boyfriend brought home some wine last night, so that's what I did!)
Take the dough out and just let it chill for 30 minutes or so while you preheat that oven to 400. Then sprinkle some flour on your working surface, take one of the balls and roll it on out! Place in pie pan, fold outer edge to rest on rim of pan, crimp edges, and then for a partially baked crust put a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom of the crust and fill it with some dried beans to weigh it down. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the aluminum foil filled w beans, and then we move on to the rest of the pie.
Take a large bowl, throw in a bit of brown sugar (I use less the 1/2 a cup, berries are sweet naturally and I hate syrupy sweet pies!) a wee bit of lemon juice, some fresh lemon zest - zinger!, a smidgen of cinnamon a sprinkle of corn starch and throw almost all of your berries (I save a bit for the top - you'll see soon.) Gently mix it all together and let the berries just soak it all in, or out. Pour into your crust and Voila!
Roll out the remaining ball and cut out strips for the top. Lace em on up - You can find help for making a lattice top online. I was not able to make mine look as lovely as that, but hey, I don't cook with rulers okay. Here ya go - Not too shabby if I do say so myself -
Bake it at 400 for 30 minutes. Go outside a take picture. The moon was bright yellow last night.
Take the foil you already used for the weights, and make it into a little hat for your pie to protect the edges at top. Bring oven down to 350 and keep it in there with the hat on now for another 30 minutes.
Wash dishes while enjoying your wine! Then take out the pie, take off the aluminum and take the rest of your berries and lovingly place them on top. Throw her back in there for a while, checking regularly to see when it's done.
Once it's fully cooked to your taste, let it sit out and cool. I let this pie cool for around an hour. Then slice, and pass around.
Joseph started out by suggesting we share a slice. Then after that slice, he went and got another. Then another. The pie turned out marvelously. Sweet and not sugary tasting. Delicate flaky buttery crust. Strong and bold. The blackberries really do all the work!
