Clean Leaning

Roy and Dot and I went to the Farmers Market this morning and one stand was selling half flats of berries that you could mix and match. So…I got 3 pints of raspberries and 3 pints of blackberries. I also got some awesome fresh mozzarella cheese for my margherita pizza, since I made it last week and have some dough in the freezer.

Roy wanted pie. I like pie. Pie is good, but pie is so good I have a hard time limiting portions…plus do we do raspberry pie? Do we do blackberry pie? I thought “Surely I could make little mini pies, right?

So that’s what I did. I actually did the whole recipe of the pie crust and ended up with enough to make 12 pies, but I only made 6; 3 raspberry, 3 blackberry.

Update: I made them again with the dough I had frozen, only I used these cute little silicon muffin cups at Amazon. They turned out MOSTLY great. One thing I hadn’t considered was that the raspberry with the cornstarch actually bubbled up some and some of the decorations fell off (I put photos below) so next time I will make them but put them into a regular muffin tin for more stability. This time I made three raspberry and three blueberry. Same recipe, only I used less cornstarch in the blueberry and had to mash them a bit.

The Silicon Muffin Cups are here

The Wilton Mini Metal Cookie Cutters (for the cutouts) are here.

So here is the recipe:

Pie Crust

2 cups soft white wheat berries (or 2 cups whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons organic butter
7 tablespoons cold water

Filling

(split in two for different flavors)

8 cups berries
1 cup sugar (Sucanat)
3 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour
Directions:

Crust:

In a food processor (or by hand) mix salt and flour.
Cut butter into about 1/2 tbs chunks and pulse until the mixture is crumbly and butter is well distributed.
Add water and pulse until the dough starts to look like dough.
On your cutting board, lay out one large piece of saran wrap.
Place dough in center.
Put another large piece of saran over the dough, flatten slightly, then roll dough out until thin and even.
Peel back top of saran. Using a 4 inch diameter or so cup, cut circles of dough.
In a non-stick or prepared muffin tin, lay the dough into the cup and let it gently fall inches Press gently until dough fills tin. Leave some over the lip so you can crimp it to the top.
Complete with all of the rest of the tins. Cover remaining dough and set aside. Put tins into fridge.

Filling:

Combine sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt.
If you’re doing two different types of pie (or more), split dry mixture in half.
With half berries, toss half the dry and then spoon into muffin tins (that you took out of the fridge).
With other half of berries, do the same and spoon into other muffin tins.
Get rest of dough and roll out. Cut into strips if you want to be fancy and do lattice tops, or just do circles, or cut circles and then get ultra fancy and cut hearts or stars into the center.
Place over the top of the filling and crimp to the pie.
Bake in 400 degree oven for 30-35 minutes.

Link to recipe on Food.com: <a href=”http://www.food.com/recipe/mini-berry-pies-504879?oc=linkback”>http://www.food.com/recipe/mini-berry-pies-504879?oc=linkback</a>

Step-By-Step

Two cups of wheat berries in my new NutriMill Classic Grain Mill. Two cups berries makes scant 3 cups flour. More than I need, but since I knew I didn’t want to have to get it out twice, I did both cups and just stored the leftover.

Look at my ground flour! Isn’t it awesome. (Okay, I get excited about little things.)

Quick appliance swap. Cut cold butter into about half tbs chunks and put into food processor with flour and salt. Pulse until butter is mixed into the flour and the mixture is crumbly.

Add 7 Tbs cold water until it starts to look like dough. Pulse and watch, do not overwork. Ignore the pink. I made blackberry sorbet in this food processor once and it stained.

Clean floor thoroughly while you work.

Roll dough into four balls. One ball makes enough for 3 pies.

Lay out a layer of saran and plop one dough ball into it. Put another layer over it. Roll out until it’s thin. That’s my Grandma’s rolling pin. I love it.

Cut dough with a cup that is about 4 inches or so in diameter. This Mickey Mouse cup served the purpose.

Lay dough across tin and sort of ease it into the muffin tin. Don’t seal the edges until it’s down at the bottom or you end up with a bubble. Press it around the tin.

Leave dough over the top of the tin. I should have left a little more.

Mix dry ingredients for filling in a bowl and split in half (or just add to cleaned berries…whatevs). Here is raspberry.

Happy little pies! Three blackberry, three raspberry.

Roll next ball of dough out and cut strips or circles for top crusts. Some people are super fancy and do like little hearts and stars and stuff in the top crust. I don’t have those, so I went with below.

Look at me fancy! Okay really, I told you I would never take photos that made my food look so good it would harm the self esteem of others, and I do live to serve.
Oh, be sure to put a hole in the top of the ones that have a full crust. I sprinkled a little cinnamon on top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes in 400 degree oven.

My second try:

One of the raspberry pies before it cooked. Next time I’ll use a little egg white to “stick” the hearts together.

Finished product. I rolled out the dough and cut the heart into the blueberry one bottom left, then put the cut out heart back on the hole (but it fell in). The top left one was the previous one after the hearts fell off. The one next to it kept its hearts because I overlapped them more. The front right is little circles and it was fine.