Apple and Blackberry Pie
Apple and Blackberry Pie is a classic British pudding. Serve with cream, custard or ice cream for a delicious dessert that everyone will love.
Page Contents
Forager’s pie
I’ve been foraging since I was a child. I just didn’t know that’s what it was called. At the end of the summer we’d head out with bags full of tupperware and we’d collect the blackberries on hedgerows around our town. When out on walks in the nearby wood, dad would happily munch on cobnuts that had fallen to the ground. My fascination with food and how it grows began there.
I’ve moved away from my home town but one of the first things I did was learn where the “free” food was in my local area. A random fig tree on a suburban street. A small apple tree in the park. And, of course, the hedgerows full of blackberries and other delicious berries.
This pie is made with apples and blackberries, two fruits that regularly grow in the wild here in the UK.
If you want to see all of the recipes I’ve made from foraged ingredients, check out the foraged recipe archive.
Apples and blackberries complement each other so well and can often be found alongside each other in desserts and other dishes.
In this Apple and Blackberry Pie the apples provide the texture and substance while the blackberries bring a sticky sweetness to the pie. Their juices mix to form a syrupy coating over the tender chunks of apple.
The buttery pastry case is the perfect vehicle for the satisfying mix of sweet, sour and sticky filling.
How to make the perfect pie
Shortcrust pastry
Traditionally shortcrust pastry is made with a mix of lard and butter. Since turning vegan I have had to adapt this slightly. Some vegan shortcrust pastry recipes use olive oil. These work well but I prefer to use plant based substitutes for the traditional ingredients. For the lard I use a vegetable shortening like Trex. For the butter I will use a non-dairy alternative. My go to brand is Flora. By using a mix of shortening and non-dairy butter it keeps the rich buttery flavour but is a little more stabled and easy to work with.
Rather than glazing my pasties with egg I simply use a little oat milk. To make them look extra special you can top them with some decorative details made out of pastry scraps.
To find out more about vegan baking, check out my big vegan baking guide.
How to line a pie dish
Perhaps the most nerve wracking thing about making a pie is lining the pie dish but it doesn’t have to be stressful. Just follow these simple steps:
- Light dust your work surface.
- Remove your pastry from the fridge and roll out until it’s just less than 0.5cm thick.
- Rotate the pastry as you roll it out so you make it a nice even round shape and it doesn’t stick to your work surface.
- Trim the pastry into a circle slightly larger than the pie dish. I try to leave at least 2-3cm. If you trim it too short it may require patching up later taking care not to over-trim which may require tricky patching up. But don’t leave too much or it might tear and will be harder to work with.
- Before laying the pastry inside, grease your pie dish and lightly dust it with flour.
- Pick up the pastry and drape it over the pie dish. You can use a rolling pin to help but this isn’t essential.
- Gently mould the pastry into the dish using the bag of your knuckle or gently with your finger tips.
- Roll some of the pastry trimmings into a ball and use to gently press around the edges of the pie dish to ensure the pastry is flush against the case all the way around.
How to prevent a soggy bottom
The secret to preventing a soggy bottom isn’t blind baking the crust. Instead, add a mix of cornflour and sugar to the base of the pie dish before adding your filling. This will soak up the juices from the fruit as they cook, turning it into a delicious syrup. This keeps the filling moist and helps the pastry to cook. Win-win.
How to add a pie lid
Once you have added your filling you need to add the top to your pie.
- Roll out the remaining pastry into a circle as you did before.
- Cut it into a circle roughly 2cm larger than the top of the pie.
- Lay it over the pie and pinch it together with the excess pastry hanging over the sides of the dish.
- Take a sharp knife and run it round the edge of the pie dish at a 45 degree angle to trim off all of the excess.
- Finish by crimping around the edge.
- (Optional) use any extra pastry you have to decorate!
Can you freeze the pie?
Yes! This pie is perfect for freezing! That means that you can forage for blackberries, and collect apples from your tree as they fall and prepare a delicious Winter Warmer despite the fact its still August!
It’s also a great example of a dessert recipe you can make in bulk. If you have a particularly large crop of blackberries and apples you can make 3, 4 or more of these pies and freeze them for later! Of course you could also share them with friends and family or fill their freezers too.
My parents currently have hundreds of apples falling off of our apple tree every day, we just can’t pick them quick enough, so my family have requested that I bake a couple of pies to pop in the freezer to eat when the winter nights draw in!
To freeze, simply fill and top the pie, wrap carefully in clingfilm or in a Ziploc bag and place in the freezer uncooked. You can then cook from frozen or defrost first.
The recipe
Apple and Blackberry Pie!
Ingredients
- 300 g shortcrust pastry
- 4 cooking apples
- 200 g blackberries
- 1.5 tsp ground ginger
- 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
- 5 tbsp caster sugar
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to gas mark 5.
- Roll out 2/3 of your pastry until it is large enough to fill a deep pie dish.
- Peel and core the apples and cut into 1.5 inch cubes.
- Place the apple into a large bowl along with the blackberries, spices and sugar. Mix together.
- Pour into the pie dish.
- Roll out the remaining pastry and cut into strips long enough to cover the top of the pie in a lattice pattern (see pictures).
- Brush with an egg wash and a sprinkling of sugar.
- Bake in the centre of your oven for 45mins.
Notes
Nutrition
Serving suggestions
I think that this pie is best served hot with a big dollop of ice cream but regular cream or even custard would work well.
This Apple and Blackberry Pie really is a winter warmer!
More apple based puddings
With apples in such abundance in the UK there are tonnes of ways you can use them in dessert recipes. Here are some of my favourites. (And of course some of them include blackberries too! It’s such a classic flavour combination).
What a cute pie! Well done!
Thanks Kerry!