AMERICAN FLAG PIE

For several years now the godparents of our MO grandchildren have hosted a 4th of July celebration at their house usually on the 3rd. They furnish the hamburgers and hot dogs and everyone brings a side, their drinks, and fireworks. In spite of the heat yesterday, everyone who attended this year had a good time. The kiddos enjoyed cooling off running through the sprinklers and the fireworks, of course, and the adults enjoyed horseshoes played with washers and cornhole. 

I wasn't sure what I was going to take for a side until I saw a picture/link on Facebook for King Arthur Flour of this American Flag Pie. I was a little concerned about reproducing the stars (rightly so), but otherwise it looked pretty easy and quite impressive. I was lazy and used two refrigerator pie crust (rolls) instead of making their pie crusts. My recipe varies a little bit from the King Arthur recipe.

AMERICAN FLAG PIE

2       refrigerator pie crust rolls (1 package) 9 - inch size
6       cups chopped fresh strawberries
2       cups fresh blueberries or 1 - 12 ounce package frozen  blueberries (I used the latter and had about two spoonfuls leftover)
5       tablespoons flour
1/3    cup sugar
2       teaspoons lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Take one of the pie crust (follow box directions about bringing to room temperature), roll it out slightly and

place it in a 9 - inch deep pie plate.

Fold under edges and crimp the edges as you prefer. Set aside.

Combine the flour and sugar in a small bowl.

Wash, hull, and chop fresh strawberries to make 6 cups. (I used almost two packages of fresh strawberries.) Place in a large bowl. Sprinkle the lemon juice over the chopped strawberries.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the flour/sugar mixture over the chopped strawberries

and toss to coat. Set aside.

Place two cups of blueberries in another large bowl and sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the flour/sugar mixture over them. (I added two teaspoons of extra sugar to the flour/sugar mixture I had leftover after coating the strawberries before measuring out the 2 tablespoons to put on the blueberries.)

and toss to coat. Set aside.

Roll out the second pie crust  and cut 6 (six) - 3/4 - inch wide strips across the bottom half to make the stripes.

(I took a plate that was the size of my pie plate and cut the dough in a circle.) 

Then cut small stars from the rest. (I have to tell you that this was the hardest part because I didn't have a small star - shaped cookie cutter. I drew around a larger star cookie cutter I had and just kept cutting it down until I had a small star. I didn't want to cut it any smaller but their stars were smaller than mine because they had 13 stars over the blue berry section and I could only get 6. The next time I see a SMALL star cookie cutter I am going to buy it.)

Place the strips and stars on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.







Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Tear off a piece of foil (I tore off a piece about 10 inches or so. I didn't measure what I started with, but you just keep folding it until you get it the right size.) and fold it in half

and then in half again.

Fold in the ends until

it will block off a quarter of the crust.

With the foil "standing up" to block off the quarter, spoon the strawberries into the larger portion of the crust.

Then fill the quarter section with the blueberries.

(This is where I had more berries than I needed, but my husband enjoyed eating the leftover blueberries.)

Remove (lift up) the foil

and you have the filling for the flag.

Place the pie on a large cookie sheet lined with parchment paper to catch any spill over while the pie bakes (I didn't have any) and place on the bottom rack of your oven. (I actually had my rack one up from the bottom.)

Place the dough stripes and stars still on the parchment paper where you cut them on another cookie sheet and place above the rack with the pie. (My rack was on the second place above the pie or fourth rack from bottom of the oven.) 

Bake the stars for 12 minutes and remove from cookie sheet. Bake the stripes a little longer until brown. (I baked mine about 5 more minutes.) Remove cookie sheet. (Didn't take a picture of the stripes after I removed them to cool on rack.)

Bake pie a total of 30 minutes on 425 degrees F. and then reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees F and bake the pie for another 45 minutes. ( A few of the strawberries burned on the edges. I just made sure the stripes covered them and they weren't noticeable.)

Place stripes and stars on pie. You will need to break off the "stripes" to fit the top of the pie. Press down to make sure they are touching the pie to soak up some of the juice. (Mine didn't soak up as much as I thought they would but looked okay. They just broke up when I cut the pie to serve it, but no one really noticed.)

Here are a couple of pictures of the kiddos. I didn't take really any good ones.

Granddaughter Madison was initially hesitant about running through the sprinkler, but Grandson Tyler wasn't.

The kids (and a couple of the moms) love trying to catch the parachutes as they come down. (See one in the top of the picture.)

They also love the smoke bombs. Forget what the girls are so focused on. Grandson Tyler (the only boy in the group) was watching the smoke bomb.

I hope your 4th of July is a safe and happy one.