Mothers who take their children grocery shopping deserve a medal. The only thing worse than shopping when you’re hungry is shopping when your kids are hungry. My youngest happened to be with me when the bakery had just put out fresh pies. I knew I was doomed…he immediately started clamoring for a berry pie.
We’ve covered my missing pie baking gene, right? However, I read this great blog post about how to make a lattice crust pie that was so encouraging, that I decided to make my son’s (latest) pie dream come true in the form of Appleberry Pie.
I used 2 bags of frozen mixed berries. They had not thawed overnight, so I put them in the strainer part of my spaghetti pot, put a little cranberry juice in the bottom of the main pot, and turned the heat on low. The berries thawed and drained at the same time. Don’t pitch that juice! It’s a great mix in to other juices, wine, or sparkling water. You could, of course, just use water; you probably would, because I’m sure you don’t have children who return a juice container to the fridge with 1/2” of juice left. The point of putting a liquid in the bottom is to create steam and to protect the pan.
The thawed berries didn’t seem like enough filling, so I diced an apple and added a handful of dried cranberries which seemed to do the trick.
Next came the latticing. I did not get a picture of the process as it took all of my concentration – not being the mathematical/spatial type. However, I will tell you that a metal ruler should be in every kitchen. Not only does it measure things, it can you tell exactly how much a stock is reducing, and it can cut pie dough into strips! I started out by marking every 1/2” and then trying to cut with a pizza cutter, but it wasn’t efficient. Just push the ruler straight through!
I trimmed the edges, brushed to top with buttermilk and gave it a tiny sprinkle of sugar. Why buttermilk? It’s what I had; in my head skim milk did not have the sticking power.
After an hour in the oven it was golden and bubbly and ready for a long cooling period.
Add Appleberry Pie to your meal plan – lattice crust or not. It’s easy to do and would make a nice addition to you holiday dessert table!
Happy Holiday Baking!
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