This is my mum's dead-easy pie-crust recipe. Perfect for when the shops have shut on Sunday afternoon and we want to make something with our foraged blackberries and we don't have any fat in so we'll just butter and shove it all in the oven because the roast will be ready in thirty minutes. Eaten with copious amounts of cream, it's pretty good. Basically I love pies, hate the faff of making pastry.
YOU'LL NEED:
- 8oz plain flour
- 4oz butter (you can use lard or trex or something, if you want)
- 40ml water
- 1-2 tbsp of sugar
- 450g/1lb of blackberries, washed
- A few tablespoons of sugar, about two to season the filling, and another two for the pie
STEPS:
1. Add butter/fat to the flour. Rub with fingers in a lifting motion, which sounds weird, I know - here, Delia explains it better than I can.
2. When it's all combined, with no big lumps of butter left, use a small amount of water to bring it altogether.
3. You can chill it now, if you like, but this will probably be made in our house when there is no time to spare. Like, a neighbour has turned up at 5.30PM with a bag of apples/plums/raspberries and we all fancy a pie for dinner and we have no pre-made pastry in the fridge (shh). What I'm saying is, like sifting flour, things rarely are left to rest in our house.
4. Roll out to a thin layer, and wet the rim of your pie-dish with some water.
5. Place all your filling into pie-dish and cover the blackberries with a couple of tablespoons of sugar.
6. Using the rolling pin to help you, place the pie-crust over the dish. Press down around edges and make a small hole to let steam out.
7. Brush a bit of water on the top of the pie and sprinkle with another tablespoon or so of sugar.
8. Bake until golden-brown - if it's browning a bit too much, give it a foil hat.
It's not going to win me any prizes in the bake-off, nor will it win a beauty contest. Delia and Mary Berry would most definitely not approve. But Nigella might have approved of all the extra-thick double-cream I ate with a second helping at 10PM later that night..
