BOO-berry Blueberry Scream Pie!

It's almost Halloween season and that means that it's time for a BOOberry or blueberry pie with a twist! This blueberry pie is topped with a version of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's The Scream from 1893. It features strips of pastry and a delicious blueberry pie filling underneath it!

I absolutely love baking pies for Halloween as they really lend themselves to a creepy theme. Some of my pies have gone viral too. My rhubarb eye pies have taken a life of their own while my Face Pie went viral after Ryan Philippe shared it. Sadly a lot of people have just copied the recipe without crediting and that sucks because it's such an easy thing to do. I like to think that they're in the Upside Down ;)

I wanted to make a Scream pie since last year but I held off knowing that Halloween was really the only time that people wanted to see these sorts of things. And it turned out ok I think!

Tips For Making The Blueberry "The Scream" Pie

1 Pies take time. That time is mainly in waiting for the pastry to rest and chill. If you have access to a ready made pie crust then by all means you can just make the pastry to do the decorations on top (in which case halve the pastry recipe). In Australia, sweet pies aren't nearly as popular as they are in America and you can't find any really great pre-made pie crusts (the frozen ones are quite small) so we usually have to make our own.

2 The good news is that the filling is really easy and you can use frozen blueberries in your filling. You don't even have to thaw them out to use them in the pie!

3 I saved a picture of Munch's The Scream on lithograph to use. The lithograph was black and white which made things a bit easier when rendering this in pie form

4 I didn't glaze the pastry for this deliberately. I wanted to keep the filling as dark as possible and the pastry as white as possible

Other Halloween Pie Recipes You Might Like:

• Rhubarb Eye Pies
• Pentagram Pies
• Raspberry & Coconut Pie With Flies
• Witches Finger Chicken Pot Pie
• Jack Skellington Pies
• Scream Crostata

Monica and I have one of those friendships where you send each other memes all day long. It's our way of saying "I'm thinking about you" or "I get you." But sometimes I text Monica people's names. In the 80s and 90s there was a special sort of celebrity, the one hit wonder along with a range of other celebrities that may not be cool anymore and were probably never cool.

One day I sent Monica a message that read:

TINA YOTHERS

I waited looking at the phone and saw the three dots pulsing as she replied. "OMG you're crazy LOL" she replied. I felt seen.

And from now on, at random times of the day maybe once every two or three weeks I will text her names of 80s and 90s one hit wonders, icons and superstars. These include:

Richard Greico

Kirk Cameron

David Guest

Mary Hart

John Tesh

And it was when I sent her that last name that I realised who this Munch Scream face looks like which had been bothering me for a while as I couldn't place it. The skull looks a bit like 80's musician John Tesh!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you text your friends really random things? Do you know any of the people on that list?

BOOberry Blueberry Scream Pie

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 45 minutes plus resting time for pastry

Cooking time: 50 minutes

For Pastry

• 2.5 cups/375g/13.2ozs plain all purpose flour plus extra for rolling
• 2 teaspoons caster or superfine sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 226g/2 sticks butter, cold and cubed
• 6-7 tablespoons ice water

For filling

• 550g/19.4ozs. blueberries (fresh or frozen)
• 140g/5ozs. caster or superfine sugar
• 50g/1.7ozs cornflour or fine cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• You will also need a paring knife and a pastry cutter

Step 1 - Place the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and process until mixed. Add butter cubes and process until you get a sand like texture. Add 6-7 tablespoons of ice water and pulse until just combined-add an extra tablespoon of water if you need it but try to avoid it becoming too wet. Knead until even textured, divide into two pieces, one slightly larger at 400g/14ozs and the other at 320g/11.3ozs and cover with cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Step 2 - Mix the blueberries, sugar, cornflour and vanilla. Set aside until ready.

Step 3 - Take the pastry out of the fridge for 5-10 minutes if it is very stiff. Roll out the larger round of pastry on a lightly floured surface or between two sheets of parchment. Place in a pie tin and use a fork to press down the sides and trim the sides of the pastry with the paring knife. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Line with a sheet of foil (spray the foil with oil on the side that touches the pastry) making sure that the foil covers all of the pastry, use two sheets if necessary. Fill with pie weights and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 5 minutes if the centre is still uncooked. Cool.

Step 4 - Place the filling inside the pie and refrigerate. Roll out the remaining disc of pastry and using a pastry cutter cut out a skull. I find it handiest to have a picture of Munch's The Scream on my phone to refer to. I start with the head and then cut out thin strips to go around. The clothing is black so I kept that as blueberry filling. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 170C/340F fan forced. Bake for 50 minutes. Allow to rest for an hour to allow the juices to set a bit before cutting into the pie.