I have a confession to make.

For all my baking over the years — cakes, cookies, brownies, pies, many of them scratch — I’ve never attempted one very basic   recipe from most home cooks’ repertoires.

I’ve never made a scratch pie crust.

The refrigerated kind were just so easy and convenient, I thought, that why go to all that trouble to make a scratch one?   I’d rather concentrate on the filling. Isn’t that the important part?

Truth was, I was intimidated by them. So many different recipes are out there, with so many different kinds of advice: Use   lard. Use butter. Use shortening. Use vinegar. Use olive oil. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Cut the butter in to just this   amount. Have it at just this temperature. It’s enough to freak even the most confident baker out just a little bit.

I used the store-bought crusts with good-enough results for years, for all manner of pies from apple to pecan. Friends — including   Danielle Haynes and Barbara Tucker from this paper — encouraged me to try the scratch type. I said I would ... but I never   did.

When I was considering what to make for this column, I first thought of the local farmers markets, and the plentiful fresh   fruit available at this time of year. Something with berries would be perfect, I thought. Now, what to make ...

At this point my husband stepped in with a request for pie. OK, then. I quickly found a recipe for a triple-berry pie online.

But what’s unique ... or inquisitive ... about that? I make pies all the time. Not berry pies, but that’s not so very different   from apple, honestly. So what could I do differently ... ?

It was time.

The pie crust recipe I used was a very simple one. I may try out variants with all the things people have recommended to me   as some point, but I think this is a good starter one. Tips I learned:

• The colder the ingredients, the better. I even stuck the bowl with the dry ingredients in the fridge for a bit, just for   kicks. The butter and the water were even in the freezer briefly to get nice and chilled. And make sure to chill the dough   for an adequate time after it’s shaped into discs. (I went with overnight.)

• I was so worried about cutting the butter into the dry ingredients too much that I’m pretty sure I didn’t get it quite as   fine as it should be. For future reference, I’m using the “small peas” standard.

• A good pastry cutter is a fine thing. Mine is getting a little bent; could be time for a new one.

• When rolling out the crust, flour your surface and rolling pin at will. Once things start sticking, the whole matter gets   quite sloppy quite fast.

In the end, it was much easier than I expected ... and much more forgiving. I did have some issues cutting those last few   strips for the top, but it’s nothing that couldn’t have been prevented if I’d have a little more time and could have popped   the dough back in the fridge to chill a little more.

The one issue I had was with the filling, which wound up being berry soup more than berry pie ... probably due to exceptionally   juicy berries. If I make this one again, I’ll add more cornstarch or some tapioca to the filling to help it set up a bit.   The recipe below reflects that. (And I’ll make my husband let it cool completely before cutting, rather than digging in while   it’s still piping hot from the oven.)

Basic pie crust

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, very cold, cut into small pieces

1/2 to 3/4 cup very cold water

Whisk together the flour, sugar and salt.

Add the cold butter pieces to the dry ingredients. Use a pastry cutter to work the butter into the flour mixture. Stop when all the butter pieces are the size of small peas (pieces can be a bit uneven).

Pour 1/2 cup of the cold water over the mixture and use a spatula to mix the dough. Add more water a tablespoon at a time until the   dough comes together in big clumps. Use your hands to knead it together gently.

Divide the dough into two halves. Wrap each in plastic wrap. Chill at least two hours, preferably overnight.

Summer triple-berry pie

5 cups mixed berries (I used two cups raspberries, two cups strawberries and one cup blueberries)

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch (more may be called for)

1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla

Egg white

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a deep-dish pie plate with nonstick baking spray.

Combine berries, sugar, cornstarch, zest and vanilla well.

Take one pie crust round from refrigerator. Roll on a well-flour surface to until you have a 12-inch round. Place in pie plate.   Brush with egg white.

Pour berries over crust. Roll out other pie crust round and cut into strips. Arrange into lattice strips over filling. (I didn’t weave mine this time, just placed them over the filling.) Brush strips with egg white.

Bake for 45 minutes. I had to cover the edges of the crust with foil for the last 15 minutes or so to prevent overbrowning.

Let cool before serving.

Jill Keppeler is a writer for the Tonawanda News. She can be reached at jill.keppeler@tonawanda-news.com.