Blackberry Pie
This Blackberry Pie has been called the best by many taste-testers! It features a sweet and juicy blackberry filling and a flaky all-butter pie crust. Below you’ll find all of my tips for making a perfect blackberry pie. Serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream – optional, but highly recommended!
This pie took me by surprise. When I decided to develop a blackberry pie recipe to share with you, I had high hopes that it would turn out well. I never expected to discover that this blackberry pie is now my favorite of all the summer pies!
From the sweet, juicy blackberry pie filling that’s brightened with a touch of lemon to the homemade pie crust, every single bite of this blackberry pie is worth celebrating.
It’s not just me that loves this pie, though! While eating his slice, my husband said that this blackberry pie just might be better than his all time favorite Cherry Pie. Now THAT is a compliment. And my 6-year-old, who doesn’t like eating blackberries plain, ate every last crumb of his slice, blackberry filling and all.
Many readers have tried and loved this blackberry pie as well. You can read their reviews below. Here’s one:
Been eating blackberry pies for over 70 years and this was the best one ever! Made it with my granddaughter and found it pretty easy.
Kathy
Success Tips for Perfect Blackberry Pie
- Use blackberries that you’d want to eat as is. If your blackberries are lacking in flavor, your pie will be as well.
- Taste your blackberries before making the filling to determine how much sugar to add. I find 1/2 cup of granulated sugar to be perfect for sweet-tasting blackberries. If your berries are on the tart side, or you prefer a sweeter pie, increase the sugar to 3/4 cup.
- When making the pie crust, keep the butter as cold as possible. Using cold butter keeps the butter from getting completely worked into the dough. The bits of butter in the dough release steam and create little air pockets when baking. This is what makes a light, flaky pie crust!
How to Avoid a Runny Pie Filling
- When you transfer the blackberry filling to the unbaked pie crust, add all of the juices from the mixing bowl along with the berries. Some of the cornstarch is in the juice, and you want to get all of it into your pie.
- Bake the pie until the filling is very bubbly (boiling activates the cornstarch).
- Let the pie cool for at least 2-3 hours before slicing.
5 Ingredient Blackberry Pie Filling
A fruit pie filling requires fresh fruit, a thickener, sugar, plus any desired flavor-enhancing ingredients. Here’s what we’re using in this blackberry pie:
- Blackberries: Keep them whole, wash them, and gently pat them dry.
- Sugar: To sweeten the filling.
- Cornstarch: To thicken the filling as it bakes.
- Lemon Juice: Brightens up the flavors.
- Vanilla Extract: For a touch of warm sweetness.
Can You Use Frozen Blackberries in Blackberry Pie?
I have made this blackberry pie with both fresh and frozen berries and both worked well!
To make this pie with frozen blackberries:
- Allow them to fully thaw and then drain off any released liquid before mixing them with the other pie filling ingredients.
- Increase the cornstarch in the filling to 1/4 cup.
How to Make a Blackberry Pie
Step 1: Make the Blackberry Filling
Combine the blackberries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and vanilla. Stir gently and then set aside. While you make the pie crust, the berries will start to release some of their juices.
Step 2: Make the Pie Crust
My homemade pie crust recipe makes a double pie crust, for the top and bottom of the pie. This easy recipe doesn’t require you to chill the pie dough before you roll it out. It rolls out like a dream and won’t stick to your work surface or your rolling pin, as long as you lightly flour both. This pie crust recipe is very forgiving and you really can’t do much to mess it up.
The easiest way to make pie crust is with a food processor, fitted with the steel blade. If you don’t have a food processor then you can mix the dough in a bowl using a pastry blender (or even your fingertips).
Combine the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor; pulse to mix. Then add the cold butter cubes and pulse 10-12 times, until the butter pieces are the size of small peas. Finally, add the ice-cold water and pulse until the dough starts to come together.
Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and cut it in half.
Step 3: Assemble the Pie
Roll out one disk of pie dough and place it in the bottom of a deep dish pie dish. Stir the blackberry filling again to make sure everything is well combined (the cornstarch will mix in better now that the berries have gotten a bit juicier), then transfer it to the pie dish with the bottom crust.
For the top crust, you can make a lattice crust or place the second whole dough round on top of the pie, cutting a few slits in the top to let steam escape as the pie bakes.
Step 4: Egg Wash
An egg wash is a mixture of one egg plus one tablespoon of milk. Brushing the pie with the egg wash before baking helps the crust to get a nice golden brown sheen as it bakes. You can also sprinkle the pie with coarse sugar or granulated sugar before baking, if desired. This adds a bit of sparkle, crunch and sweetness.
Step 5: Bake
Bake the pie at 400° F for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350° F and continue baking for 45-50 more minutes, until the filling is bubbly and crust is light golden brown. Baking the blackberry pie at a higher temperature initially helps the filling start to thicken up faster and promotes crisping of the pie crust.
Step 6: Let it Cool
Let the pie cool for at least 2-3 hours, and ideally until it is fully cool, before slicing and serving. As the pie cools, the filling will set up.
This pie tastes best when served at room temperature. You may also serve it warm or chilled if you like. A scoop of vanilla ice cream is optional but highly recommended!
Make Ahead & Storage Tips
- Storage: The baked pie can be left at room temperature for up to 12 hours. Store leftover blackberry pie in the refrigerator, wrapped tightly with plastic wrap, for up to 5 days.
- To Freeze: The baked pie can be frozen for up to 3 months. Let it cool completely and then wrap it tightly before freezing. Thaw for 24 hours in the refrigerator before serving.
- The pie crust dough can be made ahead of time, wrapped airtight, and stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Let frozen pie dough thaw overnight in the refrigerator before rolling it out.
More Favorite Fruit Pie Recipes
Blackberry Pie
Ingredients
Pie Filling
- 6 cups fresh blackberries, about 30 ounces, see note below about frozen berries
- ½ cup granulated sugar, or to taste*
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch, use ¼ cup if using frozen blackberries
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Crust
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
- 7 tablespoons ice-cold water
Egg Wash + Sugar Sprinkle
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon milk
- coarse (turbinado) sugar or granulated sugar, optional, for sprinkling on top of pie
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400° F with a rack in the lower third of the oven.
Make Blackberry Pie Filling
- Place blackberries in a large bowl. Add the sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and vanilla and stir until well combined. Let the filling mixture rest while you make the pie crust so that the berries release some of their juices.
Make Pie Crust
- Place the flour, granulated sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. (Alternatively, the pie dough can be made by hand in a bowl using a pastry cutter.) Pulse a few times to combine.
- Add the cold butter cubes and pulse 10-12 times, until the butter pieces are the size of small peas. Then add the ice-cold water and pulse until the dough starts to come together.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and bring it together into a ball; cut it in half. Form each half into a round disk. Refrigerate one dough disk.
- Roll out bottom pie crust: On a floured work surface, use a rolling pin to roll the other dough disk out into a circle that is 12 inches in diameter, turning the dough a quarter turn with each roll as you roll it out. Place dough circle into a 9×2-inch deep dish pie dish. (Gently wrap dough around the rolling pin to transfer it.) Gently smooth the dough out into the pie dish, but do not press it down firmly into the dish as this can cause the crust to stick to the dish.
Assemble Pie
- Stir the blackberry mixture again to make sure that everything is well distributed. Transfer the blackberries and all juices from the bowl to the pie dish with the rolled out pie crust. Set aside.
- Roll out the top pie crust: Place the second dough disk onto a floured work surface. Roll it out into a 12-inch diameter circle. To make a lattice top crust, use a sharp knife, pizza cutter or pastry wheel to cut the dough circle into ½-inch strips. Using every other strip from the circle, arrange half of the dough strips going one direction across the top of the pie, leaving a little bit of space in between each strip. Weave the other half of the dough strips through the first set, over and under, pulling back the first set of strips as needed to weave. (As an alternative to the lattice crust, you can place the whole dough round on top of the pie. Cut a few slits in the center to allow steam to escape.)
- Trim the edges of the pie crust so that there is a ½-inch overhang over the edge of the pie dish. Fold the overhang under and use your fingers or a fork to flute/crimp the edges of the crust as desired.
Brush with Egg Wash and Bake
- Egg wash: In a small bowl, beat together the egg and the 1 tablespoon milk. Lightly brush the top of the pie crust with the egg wash. (You will not use all of the egg wash.) If desired, sprinkle coarse sugar or granulated sugar over the top of the pie.
- Bake pie at 400° F for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350° F and continue baking for 45-50 more minutes, until the filling is bubbly and crust is light golden brown. Begin checking on the pie at 30 minutes and cover crust edges with a pie crust shield or foil as needed to prevent over-browning.
- Let pie cool for at least 2-3 hours at room temperature before slicing and serving. Store leftover pie in the refrigerator, wrapped tightly, for up to 5 days.
Notes
- You may use a store-bought pie crust if you don’t want to make your own. You will need a double crust, one for the top and one for the bottom of the pie.
- You can adjust the amount of sugar depending on the sweetness of your blackberries and how sweet you like your pie.
- To make with frozen blackberries: Allow the blackberries to fully thaw and drain off any excess liquid. Increase the cornstarch to ¼ cup.
- Success Tips: It is important to bake the pie until the filling is bubbling because this will fully activate the cornstarch, ensuring that your pie isn’t runny. Also be sure to let the pie cool for at least 2-3 hours before slicing, so that the filling can thicken up.
- Storage: Store the baked pie at room temperature for up to 12 hours or in the refrigerator, wrapped tightly with plastic wrap, for up to 5 days.
- To Freeze: The baked pie can be frozen for up to 3 months. Let it cool completely and then wrap it tightly before freezing. Thaw for 24 hours in the refrigerator before serving.
- The pie crust dough can be made ahead of time, wrapped airtight, and stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Let frozen pie dough thaw overnight in the refrigerator before rolling it out.
I originally shared this recipe in June 2018. Post updated June 2024 with new photos and updated recipe tips.
So delicious. Thanks!
Yay! I’m so happy that you enjoyed this! Thanks for letting me know. 🙂
This looks and sounds fantastic! I have been wanting to make a blackberry pie for awhile now and this will be a perfect choice for my husband’s birthday coming up this Sunday. I’ll let you know how it turned out!
Happy Birthday to your husband! I hope all of you love the pie. I’ll be excited to hear how it turns out. 🙂
This is the most delicious pie ! I made it for my husband thinking I wouldn’t want any but like your son, I cleaned my plate. It cuts perfectly and i really like the hint of lemon . I’ve already had a piece for breakfast today !
Have you ever frozen this pie?
I haven’t, so I can’t say how it would freeze. I would probably make the crust and filling and freeze them separately. Thaw the filling in the refrigerator, fill the crust and then bake.
Any blackberry pie depends on the quality and type of berry for it’s success, and therein lies the problem. A supermarket blackberry might certainly need vanilla, lemon or the extras that many recipes include. Because I have been fortunate enough to live much of my life in areas where there were really good wild blackberries or where I could grow my own, the flavor of the berries stood on their own, and adding such flavors would be a large mistake. If you are ever lucky enough to get some West Coast Marionberries or the little wild berries, please don’t add anything but sugar and thickening.
I used fresh picked wild berries too, yet I found the lemon and vanilla added a lovely balance. That said, we halved the sugar, and I will halve again or omit it next time as I find fruit sweet enough and sugar has a strong flavour to me. US Americans seem to have a much sweeter tooth than we do, but all sense of taste is unique.
I don’t know what white whole wheat flour is as opposed to regular wholemeal here. We used wholemeal and it seems to be the same or similar enough. I also assumed all US American volumes.
I made this for mother’s day, and got tons of compliments! It was my first experience baking a pie from scratch. This pie was beautiful, and even more delicious. It was so sweet despite not having to add much sugar. I used mostly frozen berries, and I must not have let them fully thaw because the pie filling was extremely runny! I think more cornstarch, using only fresh berries, or letting the frozen ones thaw all the way would solve this problem, however. Great recipe!
Hi Grace, I’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed this pie! You’re right, it’s important to thaw frozen berries all the way and drain off any excess liquid. You should also increase the cornstarch to 1/4 cup, as directed in the recipe note for using frozen berries. 🙂
Hi Christine, Im Mark, and I want to thank you for the detailed recipe. Im a widower, so I cook a lot for me! And I just made the most perfect, delicious pie Ive ever eaten. I had never made a crust before, and this one was absolutely awesome! Flaky, light, Mmmmmmm! Thanks again
Been eating blackberry pies for over 70 years and this was the best one ever! Made it with my granddaughter and found it pretty easy.
Thank you Kathy!
Hello Kristine! The recipe sounded great, but sadly, something went wrong with my filling. I used fresh picked blackberries from a local farm, which I sampled prior to making the pie, so I knew there was no problem with the berries themselves. I followed the recipe exactly when it came to the filling, and the cornstarch definitely kept the filling from turning runny. However, the flavor of the filling was so off putting that I literally could not eat it. I am an experienced baker, but as I always use other thickening ingredients, this is the first time adding cornstarch to a recipe for a pie filling. Could the unpleasant taste be coming from the cornstarch? The taste is hard to describe succinctly, but I would say the filling tastes bitter. Any thoughts or advice? Thank you!
Hi Joyce,
I’m not sure what when wrong, that could be a sign that the pie was undercooked. Everyone’s tastes are different, if you have strong tastebuds for cornstarch you can omit that ingredient and replace it with a thickener of your choice.
I have never made blackberry pie before and this turned out great! I had to make some alterations. I used vegan butter since we are dairy free. I was out of cornstarch so I substituted using 6 TBS of arrowroot powder in place of the 3 TBS of cornstarch. I also did a plain egg wash with egg whites, not adding the milk. I didn’t have a lemon on hand so I used 1 TBS of lemon juice instead. The pie was so good and the crust was flakey and slightly sweet.
My husband and I love this pie. Thank you for this amazing recipe. This my new favorite pie!
I’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed this recipe!
Followed the directions using fresh berries and a little extra cornstarch but my pie was very runny. I cooked it for an hour so needless to say I was very disappointed.
I’m sorry to hear that. Did you let it cool completely (at least 2 hours) before slicing? I hope it still tasted delicious!
I was really looking forward to trying this pie; however I was disappointed in the final product. Definitely needed more sugar. My boys didn’t even want to finish their pieces. ?
I’m sorry you were disappointed with the pie. It sounds like your blackberries may have been on the tart side. You can always adjust the amount of sugar in a recipe, depending on how sweet your fruit is and your tastes.
Have you tired This recipe with any other berries like blueberries or huckleberries?
Here is my blueberry pie recipe. I haven’t tried this recipe with other berries.
Best pie, of any fruit, that I’ve ever made! I think those that complained that it was too runny didn’t let it drain long enough. I put my frozen berries in the colander for about 6 hours, stirring it every hour or so, and ended up with almost a pint of liquid! Imagine if I had baked it with all that! The consistency of the filling was top notch! We LOVED this…thanks for sharin
Well, the pie is in the oven, I didn’t read the recipe all the way thru and put the egg and extra tablespoon of water into the filling, will have to see how this turns out 🙄 Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh my! I hope it turns out ok. Happy Thanksgiving!
I love this recipe! My husband is pre diabetic so I substituted monk fruit for the sugar. I used a little less than was called for the sugar and my husband loved it.
Taste Amazing well not use any other black berry pie recipe again.. 😋😋😋
Made this for my husband’s birthday and his family they all loved it and now are begging for me to make more for thanksgiving!
Made this blackberry pie! Everyone loved it! I also love the fact that you have that little thing you can press to keep the recipe on your phone without a darkening and leaving great idea!
This was delicious. Followed the recipe and even though I haven’t made pie in years it was picture perfect. Would definitely make this again
Hi I have fresh berries from our yard that are froze. But when I thaw them out they lose their plumpness. I’m a little worried to thaw them out as the recipe states. Do you know what I mean about the blackberries basically deflating? Any suggestions would be very appreciated. I want to make this for the super bowl tomorrow. Thanks
Hi Tricia,
I don’t know of anything you can do to prevent frozen berries from losing some of their shape as they thaw, unfortunately. That’s the trade off you make when you use frozen berries instead of fresh in pies. Since they’re from your yard I bet they have great flavor, though!
I’ve never made blackberry pie! On the cooling. Can’t wait to see how it taste. Thank you!
My sister in law She can no longer bake for herself and she asked me to bake her a blackberry pie. I found your recipe very easy to follow was very pleased with the outcome and the smell in throughout our home. She said it was so delicious!!!!!!!