pie crust

Here’s a last minute, super easy, and very patriotic dessert for you to bring to your 4th of July shindig (or shindigs if you are just that popular!).

A berry patriotic pie!

See what I did there?

I actually loved this so much, I made it twice. Once as a slab pie and once as individual mini pies. Both were extremely easy since I cut a lot of corners and used both premade pie dough and frozen berries.

Work smarter, not harder, people.

Some of you may scoff at my use of premade pie crust and frozen berries, but let me tell you, it in no way affected the taste of this pie. It was delish! But if you are one of those people who really loves to make things from scratch (trust me, I get it), by all means, make your own pie crust. I have an excellent recipe here.

So this post will be a little different. I am going to walk you through how I assembled the slab pie and the little mini pies (or tarts), but they are both the exact same recipe, which you will find at the end.

How to Make a Berry Patriotic Slab Pie

If you are making your own pie dough, do that first, then let the pie dough chill before rolling it out.

If you are using store-bought pie dough, combine both sheets of pie dough together, and roll it out so that it fits a rectangular baking sheet. I am using a small quarter sheet pan for this. You can also use a casserole dish or normal round pie dish.

For the slab pie, I went with an ombre effect. To do that, I first separated out each type of berry and arranged them from darkest to lightest. This is completely unnecessary, and you can instead mix all the berries together to make one delicious berry pie.

Mix all the berries with the sugar mixture, which consists of granulated sugar, corn start, and lemon zest.

If keeping the berries separate, mix a portion of the sugar mixture into each bowl of berries. I mixed in 3-4 tbsp for every cup of berries.

Then spoon the berries into the pie crust.

Use the extra dough to create a desired pattern on top. I went with stars and stripes which I created using a star-shaped cookie cutter and a pizza cutter.

The “rope” around the outside was created by taking long and skinny pieces of dough, pinching them together on both ends, then twisting until they looked like a rope. I made several of these to put around the edge.

Bake the pie at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce and bake at 350 for another 30 – 40 minutes, or until the berries are bubbling and the pie crust is golden.

To ensure your pie crust doesn’t break off mid-bake, adhere the pieces to the bottom pie crust with a bit of an egg wash.

How to Make Berry Patriotic Mini Pies

Again, start with either homemade or store-bought pie dough. Roll out the pie dough into one big sheet and cut out circles about 1/2″ wider than the opening of the tart pan.

Press the dough into the bottom and along the sides of the tin.

Mix together the berries and sugar mixture.

For these mini pies, I combined the red berries together, and the “blue” berries together.

Spoon the berries into the pie shells and then top with the extra pie dough.

Similar to the slab pie, I cut out stars and stripes and placed stars on the “blue” pie and stripes on the “red” pie.

Brush the tops of the pie crust with an egg wash so they turn a nice golden brown color.

And, just like the slab pie, bake at 400 for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature, and bake at 350 for another 20 minutes. The mini pies bake much quicker.

So there you have it! Two ways to make a super cute and berry patriotic pie (or pies)! Who knew making a pie could be so easy?

Now, tell me the truth, which version is your favorite? I think I like the mini ones, personally…but maybe it’s because my slab pie just didn’t want to behave!

Supplies and Recipe

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A pie can only be as good as it’s filling, right? I’d argue that it’s only as good as it’s crust. Okay, maybe the combination of the two.

As a pie crust lover (as a kid I would ONLY eat the crust, not the filling), I’m not above turning my nose up at a pie that has a soggy, rubbery crust (call me a pie snob). A great pie not only has a delicious filling, but MUST be surrounded by a flakey, buttery crust.

Trouble is that getting that perfect pie crust at home isn’t always so easy. It can be a pain in the butt to cut the butter into the flour and make sure you get the right consistency. That’s why frozen pie crust exists!

But frozen pie crust is not the answer. I have found the secret to delicious, flakey, buttery pie crust that you can make at home while barely lifting a finger: the food processor!

You may be thinking that a food processor is just a cop out or its cheating, or that it just can’t produce a good pie crust. I’m hear to tell you that you are wrong and that it can make an excellent pie crust, with one simple tip.

The key to any pie crust is cold butter. I cubed mine up and set it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Once it was hardendd I added about 3/4 of the butter to the food processor. I kept the rest off to the side to add in later.

Then I processed the butter with just a bit of flour to chop it into smaller pieces.

Finally, I added the rest of the flour and pulsed it in the food processor until it resembled a coarse sand. At this point I added in the reserved butter (so I could have some bigger chunks of butter in there), and turned the processor to low speed while I drizzled in the water.

I knew the dough was ready when it started coming together but still looked a bit dry.

After letting the dough chill for a while, I rolled it out into a relatively thin sheet. I kept a portion of the dough off to the side to decorate with later.

To transfer the dough to the pie dish, I likr to fold the dough in half twice then place the center corner in the center of the pie dish. Then all I do is unfold it, form it to the pan, and trim the edges.

From here, you can fill it with any filling you like. I filled mine with a berry filling that I was testing out (verdict: tastes delish, but method needs some tweaking). You can see that the filling is pretty wet and you may be worried I’ll end up with a soggy bottom (any British Baking Show fans out there?). Well, never fear! This pie crust can stand up to some pretty soggy filings!

I also tried out some fun decorative lattice work. I braided a couple strips and layered then with some plain strips of dough. The I cut out tye extra dough with a small star cutter and placed then aroubd the outside. After a generous egg wash, the pie is ready for the oven!

I couldn’t wait to dig into this pie!! I did my best to let it cool so the filling wouldn’t topple out every where. And iy was worth it! A delicious filling surrounded by a crispy, buttery, and flakey crust.

The pie crust lover in me loved this pie, especially the crust. The best bites were the ones right at the end when it’s 97% crust and 3% pie filling.

I encourage you to try your hand at making your own pie dough at home! I promise, if you let your food procesor do the work for you, its almost as easy as buying the stuff from the store!

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Berry Patriotic Pie (2 Ways!)

How to Make a Berry Patriotic Slab Pie

How to Make Berry Patriotic Mini Pies

Supplies and Recipe

Easy Pie Crust Recipe