We recently hosted dinner for my cousin and I wanted to put a menu together highlighting the great veggies that are growing in my garden or that can be found at the farmer’s market. I’m a regular attendee of the farmer’s markets, hitting up at least one, sometimes two, on the weekends and I love using fresh produce. I had an idea for adapting pot pies using seasonal fruit for a dessert and blackberries immediately came to mind. I did some searching for ideas, and ended up adapting this Carla Hall recipe to my own tastes, using a refrigerated pie crust and individual ramekins.

Normally, I would make my own pie crust, but with my other weekend canning projects (in addition to caring for a toddler!), I went the easy route with these and I don’t regret it. Also, make sure to taste your blackberries before making this. If they are pretty sweet, stick with the 1/2 cup of sugar. If they are on the tart side, you can add a little more sugar if you want to cut the tartness a bit.

Blackberry Pot Pies

Serves 4

• 1 full quart blackberries
• 1/2 cup sugar, plus additional for sprinkling
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 roll of refrigerated pie crust (or homemade pie dough of your choice)
• 1 egg

Preheat the oven to 350°

Put blackberries, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla and lemon juice in a bowl. Carefully mix until all the liquids are combined and let the berry mixture sit for about 10 minutes.

Divide the berries and juice in to 4 individual ramekins.

Unroll the pie dough and, using the ramekin, cut a circle out of the pie dough about 1 inch wider in diameter than the ramekin so that the dough will overhang the sides of the ramekin when placed on top. If you are careful about spacing, you can get up to 4 pot pie tops from the one roll of dough, although some may have some funky shaped edges. You can fix them up a little before you add them to the ramekins if you want or just use two pie crusts.

Add the cut out dough circles to the ramekins and put three slits in each one for steam to escape. Crack the egg in a bowl and whisk it together. Brush the egg wash on the tops and sides of the pie dough and then add a little sprinkling of sugar to each one.

Place the ramekins on a sheet pan covered with foil or parchment paper, in case the filling leaks, and bake for 35 minutes, or until the pot pies are golden brown on top.

Remove from oven and allow to cool a little before serving. If you’d like to make them in advance, just pop them back in a warm oven for about 10 minutes before serving. Top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. And just because I can, I also added a couple brandied cherries on top.