made my first dried elderberry pie last night and pleased with result.
had to figure out how many dried eldgerberries to use and also to convert
crust and filling recipe to small 7" pie plate for my toaster oven which
conserves electricity. put the details on my website under "Food".
copy follows. hope info is useful.

<pre>Dried Elderberry Pie
by William R. Watt,
November, 2004

1. Recipe

4 cups reconstituted dried elderberries
1.5 cups sugar
4 tbsp melted butter or margarine
thicken with a bit of flour or corn starch if runny
bake for 45 min @ 367 deg F or until crust is browned
(see "Feasting Free on Wild Edibles" by Bradford Angier (1972)
(or bake 35-45 min @ 425 deg as for Betty Crocker berry pies)

2. Reconstituting dried elderberries

Pour an equal volume of boiling water over the elderberries
and stew until soft. The elderberries swell up 50%, so for the
recipe above start with 2 2/3 cups of dried elderberries.
Strain off the water and drink as an herbal tea.

3. Drying elderberries

Remove berries from clusters either before or after drying.
Use a wide toothed comb to remove from clusters before drying.
Either way there will be small stem bits in with the dried
berries. The bits of stem will soften when the pie is baked
and not affect the taste or texture. Before drying wash the
berries under running water and drain. Spread on towel or
newspaper to soak up water, just like drying washed lettuce.
Spread on newspaper or in trays (eg. foam meat trays) for 2-3
weeks until thoroughly dry. Store in containers until needed.

4. Converting the recipe for 7" toaster oven pie

Electricity can be saved by using a small toaster oven to bake
the pie. A 9" pie plate will not fit in my toaster oven. An 8"
pie plate will. I have a couple of nice 7" glass pie plates
with tab for a removable Corning Ware handle. Here is how I
converted the recipe for the 7" pie plates. First, to
find the amount of filling needed the pie plate was filled
almost to the top with water and the water was poured into a
measuring cup, giving 2 cups for the filling. Second the pie
crust recipe was reduced by the ratio of the 7" pie to the 9"
pie. Since the crust is an area, the reduction has to be
according to the area of the two pie plates. To do that divide
the square of 7 by the square of 9, or 49/81, which gives 0.6.
The resulting recipe for the 7" pie crust (and top) is

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cups shortening
3 tbsp water

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William R. Watt ) writes:

> bake for 45 min @ 367 deg F or until crust is browned
^^^^^^^^^

okay, if you're not that fussy, 375 will do.
don't know how 367 got in there.

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William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
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William R. Watt ) writes:

> bake for 45 min @ 367 deg F or until crust is browned
^^^^^^^^^

okay, if you're not that fussy, 375 will do.
don't know how 367 got in there.

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William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
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