When you make jelly/jam, you de-stem the grapes, cook them down in some water and put them through a food mill to separate out the seeds and skins, saving the pulp to drain through cheese cloth for jelly or use as is for jam.
With grape pie, you want the pulp and the skins, but not the seeds. (Although, I have heard stories about people leaving the seeds in and the memorable crunch that occurred.) In order to accomplish this, you need to separate the skins from the pulp (which contains the seed) by squeezing the grape, thus popping the pulp out. Once you have them separated (above), set the skins aside and cook the pulp (only) to soften it and send it through the food mill to extract the seeds.
Then, you put the two (pulp and skins) back together and measure them into 3 cup portions for your freezer.
This leaves you all set to make...
Grape Pie (adapted slightly from the Mennonite Community Cookbook)
3 cups prepared Concord grapes (skin and pulp combined without seeds)
3/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp. flour
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. lemon juice
8 or 9 inch deep dish pie crust
Combine flour and sugar and add to grapes. Blend in lemon juice and melted butter. Set aside.
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
Blend with a fork in a small bowl to make crumbs.
Pour grape mixture into pie crust. Sprinkle the crumbs on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until crumbs and crust are light to medium brown. Watch it disappear. Pin It
In WA state, we're surrounded by concord grapes - but no one ever makes this pie! Its my husband's favorite, and occasionally in the fall I make one or two. We've found if you cut the recipe with 1/2 apples & 1/2 grapes you get the same flavor without quite so much work! Happy baking!!
ReplyDeleteThis is my favorite pie...a West Virginia treat!
ReplyDeleteIt is so neat to see the slightly different ways to make grape pie. I can our filling to save on freezer space. And I'll be honest, then all I have to do is open the jar and pour it into the pie crust come winter.;) Grape pies are very popular here in New York.:)
ReplyDeleteEvery year, the city of Geneva, Ohio, rolls out the purple carpet for its annual Grape Jamboree festival. For more than 50 years, Geneva has been celebrating their grape harvest by eating and drinking all things grape-related…which of course includes grape pie! People drive from miles around for an annual pilgrimage to pick up one of the over 1200 grape pies made with care by local women to benefit one of the area Catholic schools.
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