Lattice rhubarb plum pie
I love mixing tart and sweet. Rhubarb is such a gorgeous flavour and becomes lovely and gentle when mixed with sweet plums. This pie can honestly be made with a mix of whichever fruits and berries you’d like - you can hardly go wrong!
You are about to learn how to make shortcrust pastry.
One thing I’ve found weird on my from-scratch cooking journey is that for so many pie, quiche and tart recipes - and there are many out there on the ol’ internet - almost all of them just list a ready made shortcrust pastry instead of giving you the recipe to make your own. Maybe in some cases it’s a brand affiliation thing, but I think some others are just shying away from making their own, or encouraging you to make your own.
I find it strange because, honestly, shortcrust pastry is eaaasyyy. Few ingredients, fun to play with, lasts a long time in the fridge if you have leftovers - it doesn’t need to rise or have any big chemical reaction that can go horribly wrong. So if you’ve had in your head that this was a tough thing to do, you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you learn how to make your own! Bookmark this recipe so whichever tart, pie, or quiche you want to make, you have a basic shortcrust pastry dough template here. It doesn’t have to be a rhubarb pie every time!
As I said right at the start, this can honestly be any kind of pie you want, the filling can consist of whatever fruit or berries you have lying around that need using. I would suggest though to try to mix tart (like tart apples, rhubarb or similar) with sweet, so you don’t get too much of one. It’s when these two come together that sparks fly. If you don’t really have any tart fruit at hand, you can squeeze lots of lemon juice in to counter the sweetness of your filling a bit. I actually added lemon to this as well as the rhubarb, because it just goes so well as a flavour in pies and tarts.
Be patient with yourself, make this an afternoon activity and put some music on - let’s make a gorgeous lattice pie.
Lattice rhubarb and plum pie
Ingredients
Pastry dough
2 cups (300g) plain flour (I recommend French flour!)
1 cup (250g) salted butter, room temperature (or unsalted and add a pinch of salt yourself)
1 large egg
3 tbsp ice cold water (if needed)
Note that you will most likely have leftover pie pastry dough, and that’s great! Look out for a lovely recipe where you can use your leftover dough.
Filling
About 4 rhubarb stalks
6 sweet medium sized plums
2 tbsp honey
1/2 lemon
2 tbsp sugar (I used coconut sugar but any is fine, can also skip)
1 tbsp cinnamon
Instructions
Preheat your oven to about 200ºC, 180ºC if your oven is fan assisted. (390ºF).
First, we make the dough. In a large bowl, mix flour with chunks of room temperature butter. Get your hands in there and mix it properly (or use a food processor if you have one). Before it’s too well mixed, add the egg in and mix really well. If the mix is too try you can add a few tablespoons of ice cold water (you want to keep the dough pretty cold so it’s easier to manage), but I often find I don’t need much water. However it goes for you, you can add water or flour to make wetter or drier, so don’t panic!
Transfer the dough on to a floured surface and kneed for a few minutes, just to make sure it’s mixed well and nice and smooth. Split the dough in to 2 parts, one slightly larger. Cover the larger part in cling film or a plastic bag and put in the fridge. Take the other part and roll it out thin, but manageable, on your floured surface. Keep it nice and floured and keep flipping the dough so it doesn’t stick. When you’ve reached a good size for your pie or tart pan, gently move it over and pat it down so it fills up the dish nicely and evenly. Let some dough come over the sides of the dish, as it makes it easier to stick the lattice on top later. Cover over it with baking paper, and top the baking paper with ceramic baking beans to keep it from rising up - we want to keep the base of this pie in place! If you don’t have ceramic baking beans, you can also use some uncooked rice (but you’ll have to throw it out after, don’t cook with it!). “Blind bake” the base for about 10 minutes in the oven.
In the meantime, cut the rhubarb and plums in to fairly big chunks. Put them in a saucepan with a tiny bit of water so they don’t stick, and cook them for a good while, 10/15 mins on medium heat. Squeeze in the juice half a lemon and drizzle in the honey, sugar and cinnamon. Let it simmer and bubble until it’s a nice, gooey mix, some chunks can remain but make sure everything is fairly soft. Pour the mix over the pie base.
Now for the lattice: You can of course drop this bit and make this a tart (= no top). But the lattice top is quite fun to make! Just try to be fairly quick because the warmer the dough gets, the harder they are to control. Take the dough from the fridge and roll it out fairly thin (like the base) with a rolling pin. With a plastic tool (so you don’t scrape your kitchen surface), divide the dough into long strips, about the width of a finger. This bit depends on the size of your pie, but place about 6 strips across the pie, one way. Then lift up every other strip and place a dough strip across going the other way (so you are making a “noughts and crosses” pattern), then place the strips you lifted up back down over that strip, then peel back the other strips that lay under this one, place the next strip across, move the folded back strips down and repeat. This is hard to explain in just words, if you check out my video on youtube you will see what I mean! It is actually pretty straightforward!
I placed the lattice strips quite wide as I love seeing the filling underneath, but you can do as many and as tight as you like. You can even take a bit of the dough and make little patterns like flowers or stars and place on top of the lattice. It’s your time to be creative!
Remember that I mentioned you’ll probably have leftover dough, so whatever you don’t need, definitely keep it in the fridge. It holds for a couple of weeks and is so versatile. Maybe there will be a recipe next week that will give you some ideas (hint, hint!)…
Drizzle a bit of cinnamon and sugar on top if you like, and bake in the middle of the oven for about 15-20 minutes. Take out and let it rest before you tidy the sides by cutting the dough that went over the sides with a knife, and then take the pie out of your dish and serve it up! Lovely with some yoghurt, whipped cream, custard or ice cream.
I’d love to see how your pie turned out, and if you used rhubarb and plum or if you chose any other fruits or berries? Did you find the lattice easy to do? Share your pie with me on Instagram and tag @TheFromScratchBody and hashtag #TheFromScratchBody so I don’t miss it!
