Apple & Blackberry Pie

By efriend

Ingredients

• Pie Dough
• 2 Cups Plain Flour
• 2 Sticks (or 226g) of very cold, cubed, unsalted butter
• 3/4 tsp Salt
• 1 Egg
• 4 Tbsp Ice Water
• 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar (Or white vinegar)
• Filling
• 150 g Blackberries
• 4 Granny Smith Apples
• 1 Lemon
• Sugar

Details

Adapted from toplessbaker.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Start with the pie dough. Add the flour & salt to a food processor and pulse briefly. Next add the chunks of very cold butter and pulse about 10 times until the butter is the size of blueberries. Whisk the eggs, water and vinegar together and pour this into the food processor, slowly pulsing each time until the dough just starts sticking together slightly. The butter lumps should now be about the size of lentils. Note: you may need more water than this to pull it together, so have extra ice water at your side.

2. Split the dough in two, cover in cling film and wrap into tight discs. Pop in the fridge to chill for at least an hour.

3. Next crack on with the fruit – pop the blackberries in a pan with a small squeeze of lemon juice and a ½ teaspoon of sugar (you can vary this depending on how sweet you would like them). Stew for about 2 minutes on a medium low heat or until they are slightly soft. Pop in a bowl and leave to one side.

4. Peel & core your apples, chopping them into chunks about 1/2 inch each. Pop them in a pan with a tablespoon of water, and a teaspoon of sugar and stew for about 6-8 minutes. You will probably need to add more water to stop them from catching, but cook them until them until they are soft on the outside but still have a slight firmness in the centre. They are going to cook in the oven so you don’t want them overcook them and turn to mush!

5. Add the apples to the blackberries and toss them around, coating everything in all of the juices. Add the bowl into the fridge and allow the mixture to chill (if it is too hot when you pour it on the pastry, it will melt the butter and you’ll have a pie disaster)

6. Now roll out your pastry starting with the bottom disc. On a floured surface, roll it out until it is about 2mm thick, lay it over your pie tin and trim the edge evenly with scissors but leave about 1/2“ hanging over the edge as you will need this to seal the pie.

7. For the top disc, cut even strips (about ¾ Inch wide) and then braid them. You will need a total of 9 individual strips to create 3 braids. Using the excess dough, cut flower shapes (I use fondant cutters for this).

8. Add the filling to the pie and then lay over the 3 braids. Using the excess pastry hanging over the edge, fold it over the top of the braids and all around the edge, creating a seal so that the braid ‘ends’ are not exposed and you have a nice even rim of folded dough.

9. Brushing the back of the flowers with some egg wash, top the rim of the pie, delicately placing them all around the edge. Put the pie in the fridge for about 30m.

10. Heat the oven to 180c, egg wash the pie and cook for about 30m on 180c or until golden brown.

11. Serve with custard and enjoy!