You can't go past a great Mulberry Pie

This is my first attempt at mulberry pies. I’m one of those people who is a touch shy about baking fruit pies. Yes, it 'leaked' a bit but it sure was yummy and my family want me to repeat it again and again. I have been advise by rellies to bake it a little longer.

Our Mulberry tree is groaning with fruit already. It was calling out “Help me, relieve me of all this burden. Make a pie out of me, please.”

So when I thought I could no longer ignore the tree's pleading, the second sign came to me in that I found two forgotten pie pans that had long been regulated to the wilds of the back of my deep cupboards, where they sat there, ignored.

I also have a hubby who just loves his desserts. I will have to tell you the story one day about how we met, yep, desserts are a BIG part of the story. Anyway back to this story, this year I decided to relieve the tree of her bounty by having a shot at baking a pie. This recipe has been inspired and adapted from the Inspired Taste blog. 

Mulberry Pie Recipe

Ingredients

2 (or 3 for a deep dish) Ready Made Short Crust pastry sheets
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup corn flour
2 teaspoon lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
800g fresh or frozen mulberries
1 tablespoon butter

 Method 

1. Lay a sheet of the pastry on your 20cm pie dish and trim overhang. (If your pie dish is deep as was mine, then you may need half of the second sheet as well.)
2. Stir sugar, cornflour, lemon zest, allspice, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Add blueberries and gently toss to combine.
3. Refrigerate while you prepare the lattice crust.
4. When you have the strips ready then pour berry mixture into base of pie. Just before laying the strips.
5. Prepare Lattice Crust by cutting the pastry sheet into 2cm strips.
6. Lay 4-5 strips over filled pie, parallel and equally spaced from one another. Ideally you would fold back the second and fourth strips then lay another strip of dough perpendicular to them. Unfold second and fourth strips over new strip. Repeat until pie has been covered with a lattice. I took the lazy option and didn’t bother actually weaving them. It still looked good enough to eat.
7. Crimp edges by pinch together at meeting places along the rim. Brush the top of the pastry with melted butter. Sprinkle tablespoon of coarse sugar over crust. Heat oven to 210oC.
8. Bake chilled pie on hot baking sheet for 20 minutes before reducing the heat to 180oC then continue to bake for 45 -50 minutes, or until the crust is golden and juices in the filling are bubbling along nicely.
9. Ideally you would allow it to cool for 2 to 3 hours before cutting to allow filling to set. However my family & I were impatient and wanted warm pie straight away!!!The scent for the last hour was driving us crazy with anticipation.

Hints

• I found that lifting the lattice strips, they stretched rather too easily. Maybe it needed to be refrigerated again first.
• I was advised to refrigerate the whole pie for 20 minutes or freeze for 5 minutes before baking.
• Also as mentioned in the beginning of the post it needed to be cooked longer. I have adjusted the recipe above with an extended cooking time. Just watch for when the pastry looks golden brown and ‘cooked’.
• I strongly advise that you use at least some baking paper or a spare cookie sheet on the bottom of the oven to catch any drips from the pie while baking. It saves a lot of cleaning!
• You can substitute with frozen berries of your choice, even mix them up. Just drain them which was my mistake.
• To see how to crimp edges of pie watch this Flaky Pie Crust Video

You can see how runny it is let alone the ice cream melting on the top. Yummo!

Find the original Blueberry Pie recipe here.