Hello Everyone

Today I am showing you how to make some delicious sweet berry pies. These are great warm on a cold night, or cold on a nice summer evening. Ether way I hope you enjoy eating them.

If you have any questions I would love to answer them so leave them in the comments section below.

Lets get baking

Step 1: Ingredients for the Sweet Short Crust Pastry

225 grams Flour
Pinch Salt
125 grams cold Butter
50 grams Sugar
1 Egg beaten
1 tsp iced water (add if mixture is a little dry)

Step 2: Mixing Into a Dough

In a large bowl mix together the flour and the salt then rub in the cold butter until the mixture looks nice and yellow from the butter and it resembles fine bread crumbs. Stir in the sugar then add the beaten egg and mix until it forms a ball.

Place the pastry in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.

Step 3: Lining the Tins

Once the dough has firmed up you can start to roll it out. I floured the bench a little so the pastry didn't stick and rolled it thin (around 2-3mm). Place the tin on the pastry and then cut a larger circle using the tin as a guide so you have enough pastry to line the tins. Roll it onto the rolling pin and then drape it over the top of the pie tin. Gently lift and lower the pastry until it lines the tin nicely then cut off the excess.

Note: You can use individual pie tins like I did or you could make one large pie in a normal size dish.

Step 4: Making the Filling

You can use whatever fruit you want for these pies but today I am using some black boy peaches.

Chop the fruit into little pieces and place them into a bowl. Into the fruit add sugar to taste and about 1 tablespoon of cornflour to thicken the juices when they are cooking.

The proportions that I used are below:

320 grams fruit
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon cornflour

Step 5: Filling the Tins

Fill the tins with the fruit right up to the top. Ideally you want to mound the filling up over the rim of the tin because the fruit drops a little once it is cooked.

Note: You want to start pre heating the oven to 200C or 392F so that it is ready once the lattice is finished.

Step 6: Making the Lattice

Lay thin strips of the remaining pastry onto the top of the fruit - I placed 5 strips one way and 4 the other way. Pull back three of the strips leaving the other two down then lay a strip of pastry perpendicular to the two strips right in the middle, lay the three strips that we pulled up back down and pull up the other two and lay a strip perpendicular to the three on the fruit. Repeat on both sides until the top of the pie is completed.

Step 7: Baking

Bake the pies in a 200C or 392F oven for 45 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Take them out of the oven and cool on a cooling rack, leaving the pies in the tins for about 30 minutes then remove from the tins to cool completely.

Step 8: Finished and Ready to Eat

After all that hard work, now is the time for you to sit back, put your feet up and enjoy a delicious berry pie fresh from the oven. This would also be very nice with some whipped cream or a dollop of yogurt.