Many Southerners grew up with muscadine vines in their yard. In the heat of August and September grabbing a handful as you walked by was divine! There might not be as many private property vines around nowadays, but muscadines are plentiful at neighborhood markets and even supermarkets. In this muscadine pie, you can use all purple, all bronze or a combination of the two. The taste is a cross between a sour cherry and blackberry pie.
Click here for nutrition information for muscadines.
Muscadine Grape Hull Pie
Makes 8 servings
Ingredients:
Pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie — homemade or Pillsbury (kept in the refrigerator until ready to use)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 cups muscadine grapes (about 2 pounds), rinsed
3 tablespoons cold butter, cut into slivers (Kerrygold or other European butter)
Instructions:
- Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place one crust in a 9 inch pie pan, leaving dough hanging over the edge by about 1 inch. Refrigerate while making the filling. Mix the sugar, flour and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
- Cut a slit in each muscadine and squeeze the pulp into a medium saucepan. Put the hulls in a medium size bowl. Add three tablespoons of water to the pan with the pulp and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat. Cook the pulp about 10 to 15 minutes mashing with a potato masher to separate the seeds out. Pour the cooked pulp into a sieve over the bowl of hulls and mash as much of the pulp out as possible with the back of a large spoon. Throw away the seeds remaining in the sieve.
- Put the hulls with the juice and strained pulp back into the saucepan and cook for about another 10 minutes or until the hulls are very soft. Add the sugar mixture
and stir well. Cook on a low boil until it thickens. Set aside to cool. - Pour the cooled filling into the pie crust and scatter the cold butter slivers over the filling. Wet the rim of the bottom piecrust. Cover with the top crust. Seal the edges of the top and bottom crusts together and crimp. Make eight cuts in the top crust for the filling steam to escape.
- Place the pie on a baking sheet lined with foil in case juices spill over.
- Bake at 400 degrees F for about 15 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 350 degrees F until the filling is bubbling hot and the crust is nicely browned, about 45 minutes.
- Place on a cooling rack until completely cooled.
Adapted from nanciemcdermott.com.
