Once you learn how to make a blackberry pie, the options are endless.
We transformed a traditional pie into the cutest mini pies that are perfect for Valentines Day or an anniversary.
The juicy blackberries bring tart flavor so this dessert isn’t overly sweet.
It also pairs well with a nice glass of red wine for dessert!
Fresh or Frozen Blackberries?
Fresh blackberries are usually in season from July to August, but lucky for you, delicious Oregon Berries can be bought frozen any time of year.
The berries are picked at the peak of ripeness and then flash frozen within 24 hours, which locks in all the flavor and nutritional benefits.
We love blackberries and marionberries because they are the perfect balance of tart to sweetness.
They’re also packed with a juicy pop when you bite into them.
While we love fresh berries, we also always have berries in the freezer.
It’s so handy to use them for a quick, healthy smoothie, add them to a cake (like our Lemon Berry Bundt Cake Recipe) to add flavor and moisture, or make a quick and easy sauce with the berries, which we use for our Easy Berry Trifle Recipe.
As for pies, in our opinion the blackberry pie is king.
We love its balance of flavor, and when served warm there’s nothing better than eating it à la mode aka topped with ice cream.
Health Benefits of a Blackberry and Marionberry
- A strong dose of vitamin C.
- One of the only berries packed with ellagic acid which is said to be a cancer-preventing compound.
- Packed with antioxidants.
- Includes polyphenols which are known to help protect against heart disease and age-related mental decline.
How to Make Blackberry Pie Filling
We cannot express how easy this pie filling is to make!
It takes no cooking before being placed in the pie crust, and it’s only a few natural ingredients.
In a large bowl, add the blackberries, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, lemon juice and lemon zest.
With all of the ingredients in the bowl, lightly mix them all together so you don’t break up the berries too much.
Once the ingredients are all incorporated together, let the frozen berries come to room temperature prior to adding the filling to the pie crust.
This will help to ensure the filling cooks at the same rate as the pie crust.
When you finally get to eat your pie filling, it will be transformed!
Pie Crust
You can totally make homemade pie dough (we have a great recipe for homemade pie crust recipe that creates a super flaky pie crust in our recipe for Mini Leftover Turkey Pot Pies).
However, if you are looking to save time and energy, head to the grocery store for a store-bought crust, which works well too.
Whether you’re using store bought pie dough or homemade, always ensure you are using a heavy duty rolling pin on a lightly floured surface.
If you are making a standard pie, you will need two pie crusts. One for the bottom crust and the other for the top of the pie.
For the top of the pie you can choose to just lay the crust on top whole and cut vents for the air to escape, or you can create a festive lattice crust on the top.
In our Sugar Free Apple Pie Recipe we even used this decorative rolling pin to add a fun texture to our pie lattice.
Or opt for the standard lattice cutter tool that we use to make the decorative top on our Individual Beef Wellington Recipe.
For this recipe, we decided to make Valentine’s Day themed mini pies. This meant we needed twice the amount of pie dough for the recipe.
Right before placing the pies in the oven, brush an egg wash over the top of the pie. The egg wash when baked will provide a great shine to your pies.
Mini Blackberry Pies
As a Valentine’s Day twist on a classic fruit pie, we made mini heart-shaped pies!
They are perfect as an individual dessert and are just too darn cute.
All you’ll need are some oven safe mini heart shaped ramekins.
You can make our homemade blackberry pie the traditional way (it just might need 5-10 minutes more bake time), or follow the directions for these mini pies.
Simply trace the shape of the ramekin on the pie dough and use a knife to cut the dough sheet into shape.
It’s helpful to cut out some notches so that the dough fits well into the round edges of the ramekin.
We used a small heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut our Valentine’s Day themed designs from the center of the pie crust.
We also made a lattice-top pie on two of the mini pies and placed the heart shaped cut out right on top for extra charm.
Variations and Substitutions
- Corn starch – We like to use cornstarch as our thickening agent to ensure the pie filling doesn’t get too juicy and leaves the crust soggy. If you are out of corn starch, feel free to substitute it for all purpose flour when preparing your filling.
- Blackberries – As mentioned above, we used frozen blackberries since they are available all season, but fresh blackberries to create a perfect pie as well. You could even substitute blackberries for a different type of berry if you’d like.
- Pie Crust – Out of pie crust? Make the blackberry pie filling recipe as directed, and turn it into a berry crisp. All you need is butter, flour, sweetener, and oats. Follow the recipe for the topping in our Healthy Peach Crisp Recipe. Another variation to a traditional pie crust that we like is crushed graham cracker or crushed biscoff cookies with melted butter as the crust.
- Sugar – We used traditional sugar in this recipe, but if you want to remove added sugar you can replace it with our favorite zero calorie baking sweetener Purecane.
- Gluten-Free Pie Crust – You can now find Gluten Free pie crust flour made by Bob’s Redmill or King Arthur Flour, or two other popular alternatives are almond flour and coconut flour.
Easy Blackberry Pie Recipe
Prep Time: 1 Hour
Cook Time: 35 Minutes
Serves: 4 mini pies
Ingredients:
- 4 pie crusts
- 4 cups of frozen Oregon berries
- Juice of ½ of a lemon
- Zest of ½ of a lemon
- ⅔ cup sugar
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ cup of corn starch
Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a large bowl, mix together your blackberries, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
- If your berries are frozen, let the pie filling sit on the counter until they thaw and reach room temperature. This took roughly 60 minutes.
- Sprinkle a little flour on a clean hard surface and begin to roll out your unbaked pie crust.
- If you are making a standard size pie, lay the dough on the pie plate. Since we are making this recipe into Valentine’s Day mini pies, we used a sharp knife to cut the pie dough about 1 ½ inches wider than the heart-shaped ramekin. Line your pie dough in your vessel then prick the bottom with a fork.
- Spoon the pie filling on top of the bottom pie crust, until it reaches the top rim.
- Take the second crust to top the pie. You can keep it as a solid top crust and cut vents for the steam (we used small heart-shaped cookie cutters to make decorative vents before laying the crust on top). You can also cut the top pie crust into strips to create a lattice design on the top of the pie.
- Use a pastry brush to add an egg wash to the top of your upper crust. Then, dust with coarse sugar, if desired.
- Place the pies in the warm, preheated oven. If you are making mini pies, you may choose to place them all on a baking sheet in order to make it easier to handle the mini pies when putting them in the oven.
- Baker for 30-35 minutes, until the top is golden brown.
- Once done, remove the pies from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.
- Serve with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream.
Note: To make this recipe as a standard sized pie, you will only need dough for two pie crusts.
If the edges of your crust start to get golden brown before the cooking time is complete, use some aluminum foil around the edges to prevent additional browning.
How to Make a Blackberry Pie (Frozen Berries)
Once you learn how to make a blackberry pie you can transform it into adorable mini pies or just make a standard sized pie.
Ingredients
- 4 pie crusts
- 4 cups of frozen Oregon berries
- Juice of ½ of a lemon
- Zest of ½ of a lemon
- ⅔ cup sugar
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ cup of corn starch
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a large bowl, mix together your blackberries, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
- If your berries are frozen, let the pie filling sit on the counter until they thaw and reach room temperature. This took roughly 60 minutes.
- Sprinkle a little flour on a clean hard surface and begin to roll out your unbaked pie crust.
- If you are making a standard size pie, lay the dough on the pie plate. Since we are making this recipe into Valentine’s Day mini pies, we used a sharp knife to cut the pie dough about 1 ½ inches wider than the heart-shaped ramekin. Line your pie dough in your vessel then prick the bottom with a fork.
- Spoon the pie filling on top of the bottom pie crust, until it reaches the top rim.
- Take the second crust to top the pie. You can keep it as a solid top crust and cut vents for the steam (we used small heart-shaped cookie cutters to make decorative vents before laying the crust on top). You can also cut the top pie crust into strips to create a lattice design on the top of the pie.
- Use a pastry brush to add an egg wash to the top of your upper crust. Then, dust with coarse sugar, if desired.
- Place the pies in the warm, preheated oven. If you are making mini pies, you may choose to place them all on a baking sheet in order to make it easier to handle the mini pies when putting them in the oven.
- Baker for 30-35 minutes, until the top is golden brown.
- Once done, remove the pies from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.
- Serve with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream.
Notes
Note: To make this recipe as a standard sized pie, you will only need dough for two pie crusts.
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This recipe was sponsored by Oregon Berries, thanks for supporting the products that we love.
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