Concord Grape Pie
Concord Grapes
Have you ever had Concord Grape Pie? No? Until this week neither had I. In fact, unless they are from the Finger Lakes Region of northwestern New York most people haven't even heard of it. This past while visiting Happy Valley Orchard in Middlebury, VT I was lucky enough to be able to pick some Concord grapes. I really love the flavor of this type of grape but as they are not seedless, aren't the easiest to just eat. I wanted to make something other than jelly with them so when I found a recipe for Concord grape pie I was intrigued.
This recipe was fairly easy, although the grape preparation does take a bit of time. You need to separate the skins from the pulp, cook down the pulp and then strain out the seeds. Every recipe I saw had you just adding the skins back into the filling, before baking. This left rather large bits of skins in the baked pie. If I were to make this again, I would run the skins through a food processor to make the bits much smaller.
Grape skins
Grape pulp and seeds, before cooking
The grape pie filling
I don’t like intensely sweet pies so used slightly less sugar than called for. The result was still sweet but with a bit of tartness. I chose to make mine with a decorative lattice top with a butter-based crust. I did see some recipes online that used a streusel topping instead of a pastry crust, which I think would be delicious. The filling itself is very watery but set up very nicely once it cooled.
Lattice strips
The uncooked decorative top of my pie
Final, cooked pie
How did it turn out? Well, if you don’t like grape flavored things stay away from this recipe. It has the most intense grape flavor reminiscent of grape Tootsie Pops or Jolly Ranchers. While I was making this pie, the whole house smelled like grape Bubblicious gum. This is definitely a pie to be served à la Mode as ice-cream helps cut the richness of the grape filling.
My Concord Grape Pie: A bit messy looking, but delicious!
5 cups fresh Concord Grapes (Concord grapes are a must! Do not use regular table grapes)
1 cup sugar (Use less sugar if you want a slighly tarter pie.)
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
Pastry for double crust 9 inch pie (See recipe provided or use your own.)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Wash grapes and separate the skins from the pulp by pinching the grapes. Save the skins.
3. In a medium saucepan, bring the pulp to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes, until the pulp is tender. Press through a sieve to remove seeds.
4. Run skins breifly through a food processor to break them down a bit. Add skins to the pulp.
5. Stir in sugar, flour, lemon juice and salt. Spoon into a prepared pie shell, add a top crust and cut steam vents.
Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Allow to completely cool before serving.
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/4 inch pieces
8 tablespoons all-vegatable shortening, chilled
4-6 tablespoons ice water
DIRECTIONS:
1. Mix flour, salt and sugar in bowl. Scatter butter pieces over the mixture an toss to coat. Cut butter into the flour using a pastry cutter, fork or food processor.
2. Add shortening and continue cutting until the flour is pale yellow and resembles cornmeal.
3. Sprinkle mixture with ice water, a few tablespoons at a time, and fold with a rubber spatula until mixture sticks together. Add up to two additional tablespoons of ice water if the mixture doesn't come together.
4. Divide dough into two balls, flatten and wrap each in plastic. Chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling.