Blackberry and Apple Pie

So we went blackberry picking (brambling) last week in Bramhall park amongst other things with my sister and two of G's cousins. After our park adventures we made apple and blackberry crumble at my sisters house. The next day I took G to a nice little park closer to us and after a long play in the park I spotted loads of ripe blackberries (which I was quite excited by) so I took another haul and washed and refridgerated them and the next day we made apple and blackberry pie! I am tempted to go and pick some more before they all go and freeze them to use them for more baking or to go with yoghurt etc. Free fruit is always a good thing!

I'd already made flapjack in the morning and we did this when G was back from a tiring session at nursery so we were a bit lazy and cheated by using pre-made short crust pastry. 

It's not always the best idea to get pre-made pastry when on a budget but I got the shortcrust ready to roll block  by Jus-RolTM which is cheaper (and slightly less lazy) than the ready roll sheets and as luck had it the pack I picked up was reduced in price also! The blocks also have more pastry (500g) whereas the sheets were (320g) so I would have needed two of them.

G made good use of my sugar paste cutters I use for decorating her birthday cakes and made some lovely decoration for the top of our pie using the left over pastry.

We just went with the flow (like people would have before they had recipes to follow/like I do with much of my cooking ha) and what would fit in our pie tin, however there are plenty of specific recipes on the internet if you'd like one.

Here is our quite short and slightly vague recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 to 3 Large Bramley (cooking) Apples
• 350g Blackberries (roughly - we used a lot, did not weigh but basing on how many blackberries in supermarket cartons).
• Short Crust Ready to Roll Block (500g)
• ~50g Light brown sugar
• A little milk (we used soya) to brush the pastry

Equipment:

• Peeler and/or knife to peel and chop the apples
• Baking tin 9 inch
• Pastry brush



brushing with the soy milk

• Sugar Paste cutters (optional)

Method:

• Set oven at 175oc (we have a fan oven). 
• Grease pie tin/dish.
• Separate pastry into two balls. Roll out one to fit your pie tin/dish. Use a sharp knife to remove any extra pastry.
• Peel and slice apples. G placed half of them in.
• Sprinkle in first layer of blackberries.
• Sprinkle first layer of sugar.
• Repeat. There was room for more fruit after (we used 2 apples, next time would use 3).
• Roll out second ball of pastry to create lid. I also cut a strip of pastry to go round the edge of the pie to help seal the lid.
• Make a couple of air holes in your pie lid (ours got covered by leaves).
• Brush lid with little milk.
• If wanted create decorations with any spare pastry. G made leaves, flowers and stars for ours. Brush these with a little milk also.
• Set tin/dish on middle shelf of oven and bake for approximately 30 - 40 minutes. The lid should be golden/browned. Ours could have been browner but the decorations had started to catch.

Placing her pastry creations on the lid

 We used some of our half price Tesco's finest ice cream to have with it. It was lovely!