It's July and it's berry season! I was in the grocery store and there was a really great deal on raspberries. After buying a flat I decided to try making a pie. This was my first time making a pie on my own. The last time I did this I think I was about 8 and my grandmother was helping me! I found a recipe on line that sounded good and here's how it went:
First thing is first, ingredients!
Pastry (please note this will make 3 9in double crusted pies):
6 cups of cake & pastry flour
OR
5 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1lb shortening
1 tbsp vinegar
1 egg lightly beaten
cold water
Filling:
2 1/2 cups raspberries
1/2 packed brown sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp
1 egg white
Directions
Pastry:
1. Mix together flour and salt.
2. Cut in shortening with a pastry cutter or 2 knives or stand mixer until the mixture looks like coarse oat meal.
3. In a 1 cup measure, combine vinegar and egg then add enough water to make up just shy of the cup. Gradually stir liquid into mixture, just enough to make the dough cling together.
4. Gather into a ball and divide into 6 portions. Keep 2 portions for immediate use or wrap them and chill in fridge. Wrap and put unused portions in the freezer.
Pie:
1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
2. Take out 2 portions of dough from fridge and let them warm up to room temperature (it usually takes a couple of hours). Roll out each portion on a lightly floured surface.
3. Line a 9 inch pie plate with pastry. To do this, drape the pastry over the rolling pin, lift and center over the pie plate. If you have any cracks in the pastry just use water as a glue and over lap 2 wet pieces of pastry and press together. Cut any excess pastry off the edges. You can also use this excess pastry to patch any holes you might have in the bottom crust.
4. Brush the inside of the pie shell with the egg white and fill the pie with washed raspberries (you can use frozen or fresh, just let the frozen ones thaw first.)
5. Combine sugar and cornstarch and sprinkle mixture over berries.
TIP: Depending on the sweetness of the berries you may need more or less sugar. I would suggest try the recipe first then decide if you would like it sweeter or not, depends on how sweet you like things too.
6. Dot the pie with butter then cover with upper crust. I chose to cut a heart in the middle of my top crust, but you can do what every you like, as long as you at least cut some slits in the top to let steam escape. Then seal the edges. To seal the edges, use your finger and wet it then run it between the upper and lower crust. Then use your thumbs and press indents in the edges of the crust and voila!
7. Brush egg white over the top of the pie and I sprinkled some demerara sugar or brown sugar on top if you like. Bake for 10 mins then turn the oven down to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C), then continue baking for 30 mins. Let cool and enjoy with ice cream or freeze for another day!
TIP: Every oven is different and the edges of the pie may get burnt. To avoid this just cover the edges of the pie with aluminum foil part way through baking.
I ended up freezing my pie for a future gathering of family and/or friends. I think for my first pie it turned out well. I have to admit that I forgot to add the tbsp of butter to my pie, so next time I won't forget that step. I will also make sure that my dough has had lots of time to get to room temp. I didn't do that with this recipe and it was really hard to work with to make my crusts. And with my left over dough I just rolled it out and used it to line muffin cups in a muffin tin to make little raspberry tarts. This was something else I could remember doing with my grandma.
