After going foraging on a blackberry walk last weekend, today’s blog post is the result of that walk. I decided to combine the blackberries with apples (cooking apples are abundant in the garden at the moment) and make a bottomless pie. What does that mean? It means that I made a blind-baked pie base and it shrunk so much that I couldn’t use it! I therefore went for just a pie crust on top of the filling in a pie dish. Don’t worry, it tasted just as yummy and actually it’s a little bit of a healthier pudding, because there’s about half the amount of pastry!
Ingredients: 225g plain flour, 100g butter, 25g caster sugar, 2 tablespoons water, a pinch of salt, 100g sugar, a dash of amaretto, plus as many cooking apples as it takes to fill your pie dish and as many blackberries as you can gather!
The pastry: Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl and rub in the butter using your fingertips. Add the cold water and stir with a knife until it comes together into a stuff dough. Roll out on a floured surface to the thickness of a pound coin. By the way, my pretty rolling pin is from The Caravan Trail if you’re interested. I like to use it for pastry as it’s ceramic so stays cool – very important in pastry-making!
The filling: Peel, core and slice enough apples to fill your pie dish. Put the apples in a pan over a medium heat and add 100g sugar to sweeten the tangy taste of the cooking apples and a splash of water (or a dash of amaretto if you like the flavour). Allow to cook down (keeping some chunky bits) and allow the apples to become a little mushy. Taste the apples and add more sugar if needed. 
The pie: Transfer the filling into a greased pie dish and add in the washed fresh blackberries. Stir through a little and cover with the rolled-out pastry. Use a fork to press the pastry around the edges of the pie dish to create a seal. Cut two holes in the top of the pie crust to allow steam to escape. Cook in the oven at 180 degrees for around 20 minutes or until golden and crisp.
Serve with a dollop of thick cream, custard or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 
I hope that your pie turns out a little better than mine did! The crust came away in places around the edge of my pie but I think that was down to me forgetting to grease the pie dish and not leaving enough pastry at the edges to seal it properly with the fork. Even though it looked like a bit of a fail, the pie still tasted delicious! And it meant that I used up my blackberries in something straight away – whereas last year my blackberries stayed in the freezer for months before I decided what to do with them!
