Michelle Darmody's blackberry pie recipe
Michelle Darmody is a baking expert and writer, as well as an award-winning author. Michelle works across food education, sustainability and food policy and has a Doctorate in Culinary Arts.
Purple, inky blackberries are ripening on their scratchy briars this month and next. If you are lucky enough to live near a bramble patch you will be well rewarded for going out with a bowl or bucket to fill. Blackberries are delicious when added into lots of different cakes, bakes and desserts.
They are also the perfect fruit for making jam. Their tartness firms up the jam nicely without the use of too much pectin. Making jam helps to stretch the late summer, early autumn goodness throughout the year.
A spread of blackberry jam on hot buttered toast on a frosty winter morning is a real treat.
Ground almonds add moisture to baked goods as well as a nice nutty flavour. Their high fat content provides richness and helps to prevent the pie from drying out.
The buttery and flaky shortcrust pastry works very well with this softer filling, which needs to be baked until puffed up and golden.
There should be an ever so slight jiggle in the centre when it is removed from the oven because it will firm up more as it cools.
The blackberries in this pie bake into purple splodges, embedded within the golden almond-tinted filling.
To make the pastry, add the salt to the sieved flour and stir them together in a large bowl.
Add the cubes of butter and rub them into the flour until it looks like rough breadcrumbs.
Stir the sugar into the egg to dissolve it slightly and add this to the flour mixture. Bring it together with your hands until it forms a smooth dough.
Wrap the pastry dough in baking parchment and place into the fridge to firm up for about two hours.
Line the base of a 10-inch flan tin with parchment and grease and flour the sides.
Roll the pastry into a large disc bigger than the base of your tin.
