With Winter close, it’s time to
gathering recipes for comfort food
season. Let’s start with…
Black Bird Pie

All-Butter Crust

Makes dough for one double-crust 23 to 25cm pie or tart

2½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
½ pound cold unsalted butter, cut into 2 to 4cm pieces
1 cup ice
1 cup cold water
¼ cup cider vinegar

Filling

300g cooking apple, peeled, cored and sliced
225g fresh blackberries
caster sugar, to taste
teaspoon of lemon juice (optional)

Method

1. Sift and stir the flour, salt, and sugar together in a large
bowl. Add the butter pieces and coat with the flour mixture.
With a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour mixture,
working quickly until mostly chic pea-size pieces of butter
remain (be careful not to overblend).

2. Combine the ice, water, and cider vinegar in a large bowl.

3. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the ice water mixture over the
flour mixture, mix and cut it in with a spatula until it is
fully combined and resembles breadcrumbs. Add more of the ice
water mixture, 1 to 2 tablespoons at a time, using the spatula
or your hands mix until the dough comes together in a ball.
Divide the dough in half and shape into 2 round flat discs,
wrap in Glad Wrap and refrigerate for an 1 hour minimum,
overnight even better, this will give the crust time to develop.

4. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4.

5. Spoon the apples and blackberries into a shallow dish,
then sprinkle over sugar to taste.

6. Remove pastry prepared earlier from fridge and roll each
disc out on a (lightly dusted with flour) surface, large enough
to cover the pie dish. Grease the pie dish with butter and lay
one half of the dough in the base of the dish and bake for
10minutes and remove from the oven when firm and just before
it starts to brown.

7. Fill with apple and berry filling and place the rest of the
pastry over the filled pie. Feel free to get creative with how
you dress the top. Glaze the top with a little milk, then pop
in the pre-heated oven for 40-45minutes or until golden.

8. Serve with whipped cream, ice cream or both!