A.k.a. Purple Pear Pie!
We noticed some blackberries over the fence this morning as we played in the garden with our giant bubbles (you can find the recipe, including secret ingredient, and how to make giant bubbles wands here).
I suggested to Little E that we take a wander down the foot path and see if we could find enough blackberries for a sweet treat! She asked if we could make blackberry pie, this really surprised me as she had never been one for fruit pie or crumble puddings. So as any mother keen to have her child try new things would, I took her foraging for blackberries.
We returned home just as it started to rain with a good sized bowl of blackberries for free! A punnet this size is about £3 in the supermarket so we were quite pleased with our find.
We decided on pear and blackberry pie, as I still couldn’t convince her that crumble is nicer. Not that I’m knocking pie, but we prefer crumble here and it’s less hassle to make!
No fresh pairs in the house today and this is a good recipe for tinned pears anyway.
So for this foraged blackberry and pear pie Purple Pear Pie you will need.
For the filling:
– Some foraged blackberries, however many you can find will be a lovely accent to the pears, but a big adult handful works well.
Freeze the rest if you have extra!
– a tin of pears drained (if you have pear halves you may wish to slice them up a little)
– 2 table spoons of white sugar (or more to taste)
For the pie crust:
(For a quick easy pie I make a bottomless pie, if you want to make a full pie you need to double the quantities and blink bake the pie bottom.)
– 125g/4oz plain flour
– 55g/2oz butter, cubed
– 27g/1oz white sugar
– pinch of salt
– 30-45ml/2-3 tbsp cold water
Method:
Prepare your pastry first so that you can leave it to chill in the fridge while making your filling. (You could use shop bought pastry, but it only takes 2mins to make your own.)
Put the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl.
Add the cubed butter.
With cold hands run the butter into the flour mix to form coarse breadcrumbs, with no large lumps of butter remaining. Try to work quickly as it will become greasy if warm.
Add the water a few drops at a time until just enough to combine into a dough.
Place in a bowl in the fridge for 15mins. Just long enough to make our filling!
To an oven proof dish add;
Drained pears, washed blackberries and sugar. Stir together gently.
Its worth noting you want to avoid any excess water so drain fruit well.
Microwave for aprox 6mins, stirring every 2mins. Until fruit is softened and the juice starts to go slightly syrupy.
Your pears will now be purple pears!
Maybe I should call this Purple Pear Pie!
Remove your pastry from the fridge.
On a floured surface roll out the pastry big enough to cover your dish. I tend to cheat and knead it out with my hands instead.
Place your pastry over your dish and press to the edge. Make a little vent hole in the middle with a fork.
Sprinkle with sugar if desired.
Tip: if you flatten your pastry out on a floured plate or board that you can easily flip, you can flip it over your pie dish and lay it on that way.
This is helpful when you let your kid roll out the pastry and it doesn’t hold together well!
Heat oven to 180C, cook on the middle shelf for 20mins or until pie crust is lightly golden and filling is Hot!
Little E helped with pastry, but nevermind how it looks, it will still taste good!
Serve with custard, ice cream or cream!
This recipe works well with apple instead of pears if you are a lucky forager!
I think getting kids to help with growing, picking, preparing their food encourages them to try foods they might not normally choose.
It certainly worked with Little E today, she enjoyed her Purple Pear Pie and ice cream 🙂
More knitting next time I promise!