Very berry pie!

My in-laws are coming over for dinner tomorrow night, so naturally I have to make some sort of dessert. They usually end up getting a majority of my baking since I know they love to have sweets with their coffee after work every day, but most of the time my baking is riddled with dairy (something that they don't always enjoy) so I decided I should make something that didn't have any dairy in it. So pie it is! I have only ever made one pie before and that was the coconut cream that my husband had asked me to make and didn't turn out properly at all! So I set out for the challenge. My mom has a great pastry recipe that was passed on through generations so I of course was going to use that. I chose to do a berry pie because I didn't feel like apple, any cream pie would mean that I was using dairy and the girls have been obsessed with berries lately so I figured that it was a good idea. So I started with the pastry. 

First put the flour, lard, sugar, salt and baking powder in a bowl. 

Take out your pastry cutter.

Cut the lard into the dry ingredients.

Keep mixing until the dough looks like crumbs. 

In a separate bowl mix the water, egg and vinegar. 

Pour the mixture into the bowl and mix it all with your hands. I suggest taking off any rings you have on, the dough gets very sticky and it will be really annoying trying to get it off of them later. Mix until everything is well mixed.

Pull out some of the dough and put it on a heavily floured surface. Put some more flour on top of the dough and roll it out. 

Roll it out to an appropriate size for your pie plate.

Lay it in your pie plate. There should be some hanging over the edges. I also took a picture of the thickness, I'm not good with measurements so seeing a picture helps me gage what the thickness should be. 

Pat the dough down so that it is flush with the pan.

Now since I have chosen to do a lattice top on my pie I rolled out more dough and grabbed my pizza cutter to cut it. 

Cut the sides so that the dough is in a rectangle and then cut strips in whatever thickness you want to have.

Next in another bowl mix sugar and cornstarch. 

In a separate bowl pour your berries. I used frozen berries but you can use fresh if you want it doesn't really matter. 

Pour the sugar and cornstarch mixture over the berries. Stir until the berries are covered. 

Empty the bowl out into the pie base. Trim the edges of the pie.

 Next you have to cover your pie, I chose to do a lattice top but you can choose to do whatever you like. For the lattice top first lay out 5 strips.

Then fold three of them back and place another one across the pie. 

Lay the three pieces back down.

Next lift up two of the pieces and lay a new one down. Continue to go back and forth for the rest of the pie.

Once you are done that trim the edges.

Pinch the edges with your fingers all around the pie.

This is how your pie should look. 

I chose to add a little extra to my pie to make it a bit more fancy. So I took small cookie cutters and cut out small pieces to add to the top of my pie to make it pop a little bit. 

There is my finished pre-cooked pie. 

Next take the white of an egg.

Brush the top of the pie with the egg white.

Sprinkle it with sugar.

Place the pie on top of a cookie sheet and put it in the oven at 400 for an hour. Check on it 20 minutes in to make sure the top isn't burning, if it is golden brown take some tin foil and place it lightly on top. 

While the pie is cooking if you have left over pastry (which you will if you used my pastry recipe and only made one pie) place the extra on some wax paper and wrap it up. 

Then wrap it in plastic wrap until it is nicely sealed. Throw it in the fridge if you plan to make something soon with it, if not then throw it in the freezer and use it later. 

Here is the finished pie, it was delicious! Everyone loved it, I served it heated and with vanilla ice cream. And am planning on making two more next week, one for a cousins brunch I have coming up and another one for my in-laws because none of them could stop talking about it! 

Pastry recipe

Ingredients 

1 pkg tenderflake shortening (you don't have to use tenderflake but when I suggested to my mom that I use crisco because I had some in my cupboard and she got very mad and ended up going out and buying me a package of tenderflake so I didn't use the crisco.. So if you want my mom to be happy use the tenderflake) 

4 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 cup cold water

1 tbsp vinegar 

Directions

In a large bowl put shortening, flour, salt and baking powder and cut with a pastry cutter. Once everything is mixed enough that it looks like coarse crumbs add in the egg, water and vinegar. Mix well with your hands (make sure to remove any rings as your hands will get very messy) once everything is mixed together well either roll out and use right away or put in fridge or freezer to use later. When rolling out the dough make sure to use plenty of flour so it doesn't stick to the counter or the rolling pin. 

Four berry pie

Ingredients 

4 cups frozen or fresh berries 

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 + 2 tbsp corn starch

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 400F. Prepare pie base. In a medium bowl mix together berries, sugar and cornstarch. Pour bowl into prepared pie base and top with whatever pie top you would like. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Place pie plate on a cookie sheet and bake in oven for 1 hour, checking after 20 minutes to see if top is browning to much, if it is place a piece of tin foil on top for the rest of the baking period. Cool on a wire rack and serve either warmed or cold. Enjoy!