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Berry Patriotic Pie (2 Ways!)

July 2, 2018

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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/ Filed In: Desserts, Eat, Other Sweets New, Pies and Tarts
Tagged: 4th of July, berry, berry pie, mini pie, patriotic, pie crust, pies, semi-homemade, Summer, tart

How to Make Boxed Cake Mix Taste Homemade

June 12, 2018

Even though I love making things from scratch, even I have my days where I don’t want to mess with measuring, leveling, etc. That’s why I turn to box mixes, particularly boxed cake mix, more often than I would like to admit.

However…

I rarely ever follow the exact recipe on the back of the box. 

Over the years, I have tinkered with that recipe so that I can have the best version of boxed cake mix that I can possibly have. It doesn’t require any more work, just a few different ingredients. Trust me, these ingredients make a world of difference. 

Instead of having a semi-dry, crumbly cake that you typically get from a boxed mix. The cake is super moist and has a lot more flavor. Sure it still has that distinct boxed cake mix taste, but there is something so nostalgic about it that I don’t really care. 

How to Make It

The first tip to making a boxed cake mix taste homemade is to swap out the oil and water. 

Tip #1: Use whole milk and melted butter in place of water and oil for a richer and moister cake. 

It doesn’t end there. 

Tip #2: Sift the cake mix before mixing in the wet ingredients. 

Have you ever noticed how lumpy cake mix is? Then you mix everything together and you still have dry clumps of the dry mix? That stuff doesn’t bake away, they are left in the cake so that you have these little pockets of powdery cake mix. 

Sifting the cake mix beforehand will quickly get rid of those lumps so that you have a nice smooth batter.

Once you add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, there is one last tip to making sure you have a delicious cake. 

Tip #3: Add in extra flavoring (i.e. vanilla, almond, lemon, etc.).

Using a high-quality extract or a natural juice/zest will help the cake taste more homemade.

Once you have everything mixed together into a batter, you can make this mix into anything from cupcakes, to a cake, to cake balls. 

In this instance, I baked this batter into a two-layer cake. 

Whenever I bake a cake in cake pans I always line the bottom of the pan in a sheet of parchment so that the cake releases from the pan with very little hassle. 



All that is left is to ice the cake. 

Now my last tip to making a boxed cake mix taste homemade is to avoid using the store-bought frosting. 

Tip#4: Frost the cake with homemade frosting.

You don’t have to make a fancy Swiss meringue buttercream. Even a basic American buttercream or cream cheese frosting will work. But please avoid using that store-bought stuff, which has a distinct flavor that makes that whole cake taste like it’s not homemade. 

And that’s all you need to know to make a boxed cake mix taste like a homemade cake! 

So for those who hate baking from scratch, you can still make a fabulous cake without all the extra work!

Recipe

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/ Filed In: Cakes and Cupcakes, Cakes New, Desserts, Eat
Tagged: baking, cake, cake mix, homemade, layer cake, semi-homemade

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Hey There!

Hey there, I'm Lindsey. I'm a number cruncher by day and a home cook and baker by night. While I love to eat healthy and find fresh and healthy alternatives for my favorite foods, I will never turn down dessert! Life is all about moderation, right?

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