Puff Pastry Berry Pie
Making a puff pastry pie is so incredibly easy – you can prepare this dessert with berries in under ten minutes. I make mine sweet and tart by filling it with a mixture of cranberries and cherries.
This dessert isn’t technically a pie. It’s a cross between a berry pie and a cobbler. It has pie filling, but there is no bottom crust. I put a simple filling – in this case, cranberry and cherry – into a deep dish and top with buttery, flaky puff pastry!
Ingredients
Because my recipe is so simple, you’ll only need basic pantry staples plus frozen cherries, frozen cranberries, an orange, and store-bought puff pastry.
How It’s Made
Filling
First you’ll need to make the filling.
While this recipe is made with cranberries and cherries, you can also experiment with other flavors. The filling from my apple pie would be fantastic.
To make cranberry cherry pie filling, start with frozen cranberries and cherries that have been defrosted. Fresh ones will work, but frozen ones are often easier to find – and you won’t have to pit the cherries!
Start by smashing the defrosted fruit with a potato masher.
This will release a lot of juice. When I first started developing this recipe, I used all of the juice in the pie and it was very soupy. I’ve now learned that it’s important to strain off the extra liquid.
Tip: You don’t need to remove every last drop, but try to strain off most of the liquid that you released while smashing. You can use that extra liquid in cocktails or make jello with it!
Next, take the smashed berries and mix them with flour, sugar, and spices.
Our family fell in love with this filling so much that we not only used it here but we also served it as a riff on cranberry sauce with dinner!
Topping
Next, select the dish you are going to bake in. You are going to cut the puff pastry to match the size of the top of the dish.
Serveware with a lid works really well for this task. After gently rolling out a sheet of puff pastry, I press the lid down to outline the exact size that I need to top my pie.
After the lid has made a clear indentation, I use a pizza cutter to cut around the perimeter.
It’s a perfect fit every time!
I love the look of this puff pastry pie in Aroma DoveWare’s oval casserole dish and rectangular casserole dish. The lids work perfectly for making the indentation I use when cutting.
Decorating
You can decorate the puff pastry with any kind of design that you like. I used stars of different sizes that I lightly drew into the dough with a lame [paid link] (a tool designed specifically for scoring dough). If you don’t have a lame, a knife or pizza cutter will also do the trick.
If you want to get fancy, you can try other designs like the herringbone design on Food52’s gorgeous cranberry pithivier.
Tip: Don’t cut all the way through the dough. It’s not a big deal if you mess up, but you’ll see that the berry filling will seep through in that spot.
I brush the top of the puff pastry with an egg yolk to give the finished dessert a shine.
Baking
Bake for 45 minutes at 400 F. You’ll know it’s done when the top is evenly browned.
Expert Tips and FAQs
Store-bought vs. Homemade Puff Pastry
You can absolutely make homemade puff pastry (or even chocolate puff pastry, which would be amazing with this recipe), but using the store-bought version is a baking shortcut that I almost always take. I’ve found that some brands, like Dufour [paid link], taste just as good as when I make the pastry myself.
FAQs
Make this dessert, let it cool to room temperature, and then store in the refrigerator. It should be good up to one week. Warm in the oven before serving.
You can invert the dish or place its lid onto the puff pastry to leave an indentation. Use that indentation as a guide when you trim the puff pastry.
I love to brush them with butter, sprinkle on cinnamon sugar, and then roll them up. I bake them up and eat them hot out of the oven!
Related Recipes
Puff Pastry Berry Pie
Ingredients
- 24 ounces frozen cherries defrosted overnight in the refrigerator
- 8 ounces frozen cranberries defrosted overnight in the refrigerator
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- zest of 1 orange I use an 8 ounce Navel orange, but any kind will do
- 14 ounces puff pastry 1 sheet, defrosted overnight in the refrigerator
- 1 large egg yolk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- Place cherries and cranberries in a bowl and use a potato masher to smash them.
- Use a sieve to remove the excess liquid. You won’t need it for this recipe, but you can use it in cocktails or in other recipes.
- In a large bowl, mix the sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and orange zest with the smashed berries.
- Pour into a 3 quart casserole dish.
- Gently roll out puff pastry to the approximate size of the casserole dish.
- Use a pizza cutter to cut out the dough to the exact size of the dish. (If the dish has a lid, use it as a guide; you can invert the dish or lid onto the puff pastry to leave an indentation that you can follow.) Save scraps for other puff pastry projects.
- Use a lame or continue to use the pizza cutter to gently score designs in the pastry, being careful not to cut all the way though it.
- Place puff pastry on top of the filling.
- Use a pastry brush to brush the pastry with egg yolk.
- Bake for 45 minutes or until evenly browned.
- Serve warm.
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