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Author: Hannah Boyd
Categories: 5th Grade

A freshly baked pie, bursting with berries and fragrant with juice, is to summer what hot chocolate is to winter: a classic that captures the season in edible form. Too many of us forget how easy this delicious dessert is to make. The crust is fun for kids to mix and roll out, and the filling overflows with vitamin and anti-oxidant packed berries.
 
Homemade crust:
 
1½ cups flour
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ cup unsalted butter, chilled*
¼ cup + 2 TBS vegetable shortening*
ice water
(*Butter is for flavor and shortening is for tenderness, so no substitutes!)

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add butter and shortening and mix in using two knives until the clumps are pea-sized. Add ice water, teaspoon by teaspoon. Use as little water as you can and stop as soon as you can form the dough into a ball; overmixing will make it tough. It’s okay if you can still see pieces of butter in the dough. Separate into two balls of dough (one larger than the other for the bottom), wrap in plastic wrap and let rest in refrigerator 20 minutes or longer.

Using a floured rolling pin, roll out larger portion on a floured pastry cloth or cutting board. Set gently into ungreased pie pan, patting down edges. Continue chilling other portion of dough until you have made the filling and are ready to roll out top crust (it will get sticky as it softens).

 

Filling:

1 cup sugar (adjust according to sweetness of berries)

5 TBS flour
½ tsp cinnamon
dash salt
4 cups blackberries, rinsed
vanilla
coarse (turbinado) sugar, optional

Preheat oven to 350.