Berry Pie

Mike’s family came to visit us last week so we didn’t do much wheat-free meat-free cooking. We did have lots of fun visiting with everyone though. :) Mike’s dad also has Celiac disease so there’s frequently a lot of food talk. His mom was nice enough to bring us a bag of Meister’s Gluten Free Flour Mixture. Apparently it’s well know throughout the St. Louis Celiac community for being a great mix to use for more delicate baking projects like angel food cake, pie crust, pastry, etc.

I used Meister’s pie crust recipe and based the filling off of this pie recipe from Allrecipes.

For the pie crust:

• 1 1/2 cups Meister’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour or other all-purpose flour mix*
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick cold butter
• 3 tablespoons milk

For the filling:

• 2 1/2 cups fresh blackberries
• 2 cups fresh raspberries
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup tapioca starch

*Please note Meister’s Flour Mix contains xanthan gum so no extra binder was included in the recipe.

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Combine the berries, sugar, and tapioca starch in a medium-large bowl. Stir thoroughly and set aside.
3. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the flour, 1 tablespoon of the sugar, and the salt. Mix well.
4. Cut the butter into small chunks, then cut into the flour mixture. The butter should be in little balls. Add in the milk. Mixture will be slightly crumbly.
5. Press a little more than 3/4 of the dough mixture into a pie pan.
6. Spoon the berry mixture into the unbaked crust.
7. Mix the other tablespoon of sugar into the remaining pie dough. Sprinkle on top of the berry mixture.
8. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake for another 30-40 minutes until pie is done.

(Yield 1 9 1/2″ Pie)

Meister’s website says the recipe makes enough dough for two 9″ crusts or one 9″ crust and top. I, of course, didn’t bother to look at our pie dish and notice it’s 9 1/2″ until we had already started. Hence the crumble topping rather than a top crust.

Also, we found that the dough was rather dry, so you may need to add a little extra milk.

The filling is very thick. As thick as jelly. As you can see in the picture, you can make a clean cut. If you want pie filling that oozes all over the place, then decrease the amount of starch in the berry mixture.

I’m sure this will work with pretty much any berry mix you can think of, so mix and match according to what berries look best.