Celebrate the 4th of July with an All-American Pie with Butter Crust

//ALL-AMERICAN PIE WITH BUTTER CRUST

1. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt and zest. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender or a fork until the butter is pieces about the size of large peas. Make a well in the center of the flour mix and add the water.
2. Blend with a fork until the dough starts to come together. If there’s flour on the bottom of the bowl, add more water a teaspoon at a time until you can gather the dough into a ball. Divide into two pieces, wrap in plastic wrap and flatten slightly to form a disc. Chill in the refrigerator for about an hour and up to 24 hours.
3. When you’re ready to assemble and bake the pie, heat the oven to 425 degrees. Take the pie dough out of the refrigerator to soften slightly while you prepare the fruit filling. If it takes more than 15 minutes to deal with the filling, then put the dough back in the fridge until you’re ready to fill the pie.
4. Mix strawberries and pitted cherries with the cherry pie filling. Mix in fresh blueberries with the blueberry pie filling.
5. Smack one package of dough with a rolling pin to flatten. Unwrap and put the dough on a large floured piece of wax or parchment paper. Sprinkle the top of the dough with more flour and roll the dough firmly away from you, turning the paper after each roll to create a circle about 2 inches larger than your pie dish. Sprinkle lightly with more flour if you notice the dough starting to stick.
6. Fold the dough in half gently and place in a pie dish, pressing into the bottom of the dish. Be sure you have an overhang of about an inch all around. Trim off any excess.
7. Bend tin foil (as shown above) to make a divider for the fruit. Carefully pour fruit filling into the pie shell and remove tin foil.
8. Roll out second disc of pie dough and cut stripes and stars. Place carefully on top of your filling.
9. Put the pie in the oven and turn the oven down to 400 degrees. Bake the pie about 30 – 45 minutes, until the crust is deep golden and the juices are bubbling.Cool the pie before slicing to allow the juices to settle. Yum!