OCTO-PIE or OCTOPUS PIE? What do you say?

Blueberry OCTO-PIE or OCTOPUS PIE

I wish I could take credit for this idea, or even the name someone pegged this with.  Both were found floating around on Facebook.  The one I happened to see only had a photo and no recipe.  So I set off to try and produce the pie.  I also wanted my own photo of the trophy…dish… in this case.  Blueberries were used to create the desired contrast for the photo.  Any fruit pie would work.

The one I saw, I assume had used blueberries for the eyes.  I happened to have a partial left over jar of Maraschino Cherries.  The remainder of a jar left over from baking a Pineapple upside down cake in a Dutch Oven.   The recipe I provide here was done in a Dutch Oven as well.  

This pie was baked in a glass 9 inch pie dish, raised up off the bottom of a 12 inch, deep style, Cast Iron Dutch oven, via an inverted second pie tin.   Several layers of aluminum foil were put in on top of the pie tin prior to placing the glass pie plate containing the raw pie.  The foil left long enough to go up the sides.  The foil  can be folded over in case the top starts browning too fast, but is mostly to assist in lifting out the pie once baking is complete.  Enough coals to create 400° heat.  In our case, 9 coals on the bottom, and 19 on the top lid.  All coals arranged at the far perimeter of the bottom, and the lid.

Ingredients

2   Pie Crusts (prepared for at least a 9 inch pie)

2   21oz Cans Blueberry Pie Filling (Or 4 cups of homemade prepared filling)

1   Small jar Maraschino Cherries (Could also use fresh uncooked Blueberries

6 oz of Fresh Blueberries (washed and stems removed)

1   egg white

¼   cup milk

Mix egg white and milk together (set aside)

Pre-heat Dutch Oven or Kitchen Oven to 400°

Brush both sides of one uncooked pie crust with the egg mixture.  Lightly grease Pie plate.  Place the one Pie crust in the pie plate, up the sides, and trim off excess.  (Save all trimmed pieces)

Spread the Pie filling evenly over the bottom crust.  Next spread the fresh blueberries over the filling (remember to save back 2 for the eyes, and about 10 for the brains :-( .  If you are using Cherries for the eyes and brains, spread all the fresh blueberries on the filling.

Brush both sides of the second uncooked pie crust and lay out on cutting board.  Cut an upper main body with short tentacles.  Cut a 2^nd main body without tentacles.  Using these dough 2 parts, sandwich cherries (or some of the fresh blueberries) to in effect become brains, as well as creating fill to form a raised 3D head.   Seal the bottom dough to the top dough around the edge using the egg white solution.  The tentacle half, is the top.  Save back 2 cherries or 2 fresh blueberries to create the eyes.  With a circle of dough larger than the cherry/blueberry fold the dough over the berry and lightly pinch to create an eye.   Use egg wash to attach these eyes to the head.   Keep this whole head/eye unit on the cutting board.

Using other dough scraps, cut long tentacles, and snip along one long side (Or use pinking shears).  Arrange these with a twist to make interesting looking Octopus tentacles that start somewhere in the, to be, head area.  Extend them down to the very edge of the pie surface.  Once those legs are in place use a spatula to gently lift head unit off the cutting board and into position on the pie.  The head should cover the upper ends of the in place tentacles.

Bake at 400° for 30 minutes and then check the browning.  Cover with foil if excessive browning of the upper crust is occurring.  Then bake another 10 minutes for a total bake time of 40 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.  Oh yeah!!