Baked Sunday Mornings: Blackberry Pie

JUST OUT OF THE OVEN--FRESH BLACKBERRY PIE

FYI:  It is now 119^ here in Gilbert, AZ.  We've been outside doing yard work all day getting ready for our family 4th of July celebration.  Blackberry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream hits the spot right now.

Our family is a pie family.  There is almost always a pie, or several,  on our counter waiting to welcome family and friends with a flaky crust encasing fresh fruit fillings, or creating a shell to hold creamy goodness or nutty sweets.

All holidays require pie and usually a variety of pies...its tradition.  Some family members request pie instead of cake for birthdays.  Hubby’s favorites are fruit pies...he loves blueberry and blackberry and must have  an apple or peach now and then.  I’m a chocolate or coconut cream pie girl.  I like the others but that creamy goodness just fixes whatever ails me...usually a mental thing of some kind or another (stress...pie always fixes stress).  Daughter No. 4 is partial to a good pecan pie, my Penguin granddaughter just dies for pumpkin pie any time of the year, and I must have mincemeat pie for the holidays.  Recently I am back into strawberry-rhubarb pie but only if I can get fresh rhubarb which is not an AZ thing.  Our list goes on and on, but we never settle on just one preferred recipe for pies...we love to try new ideas, to tweak our specialties, and to find better ways of baking our loved desserts.  That’s part of what I enjoy about going through the Baked recipes.  There is always a new twist or ingredient to try.

INGREDIENTS ARE READY

The Baked boys’ crust is great.  We all loved the egg wash and sugar sprinkling before going into the oven.  We usually sprinkle the sugar just after the pie exits the oven, but we also like the before-baking sugaring.  The texture of the "Baked" crust  is just right and the flavor is perfect.  (I noticed that no crust was left behind...no one ate just the filling.)

READY FOR THE TOP CRUST

READY FOR BAKING

The fresh blackberries/marionberries are juicy and delicious.  With a few pats of butter, the two types of sugar, a little fresh lemon juice and a few other ingredients, the flavor of the filling is outstanding.

MY PIE APPEARED TO BE PERFECT

My pie came together nicely, appeared to bake perfectly, and was not patiently anticipated...it was hard to let it sit and cool before tasting.

The pie had baked for over an hour until bubbly filling oozed out onto a well-placed silpat mat.  After cooling for a couple of hours  I was excited to slice a piece for my taste test.  That is where my great disappointment kicked in.

THE FILLING DID NOT THICKEN ADEQUATELY--A RUNNY MESS

MY SECOND ATTEMPT:  COMPARE THIS JUICY BUT NOT RUNNING-OFF-THE-PLATE PIECE OF PIE

MY GRANDKIDS USED EVERY SCRAP OF DOUGH
AND EVERY DROP OF LEFTOVER FILLING

AND MADE 2 MINI PIES

The Blackberry Pie recipe calls for 1/3 cup flour as a thickener for the juicy blackberries...definitely not adequate.   When I pierced the upper crust of the pie as I sliced my piece, a flood of watery juice escaped from the pie, running across the counter and dripped to the floor before I could grab a clean-up rag.  I spooned out a portion to taste and it was a mess.  The crust was great, the flavor superb, but the consistency was way too liquidy.

Blackberry pie is traditionally very juicy or a bit on the runny side, but my fresh berries produced more juice than the flour could take care of.  Out of curiosity, I checked several fresh blackberry pie recipes from other great bakers, and all use more flour or as much cornstarch as a thickener and  some additionally added a little tapioca.  The flour users ask for at least ½ cup as a thickener for a lesser 5 cups of berries.  Since cornstarch is a more efficient thickener, if only flour is used, more is needed.

If my kids have a failure trying a new recipe and it is an item they want to learn to cook, I tell them to try again.  So, I told myself to try it again.  I purchased fresh blackberries all over again, made a new crust, and baked my pie using double the flour.

Everything went well the second time.  The crust baked nicely, the filling began bubbling out at just over an hour of oven time...and I left the pie in for an extra 10 minutes...just to be sure I was giving the flour adequate “boiling” time.  I had filling oozing out onto my mat and everything seemed to be going well.

THIS  2nd PIE ALSO APPEARS TO BE PERFECT

After removing the pie from the oven, I let it sit for 5 hours before disturbing it...plenty of cooling and thickening time.  Then I carefully sliced open the pie, and again it was juicy, but not overflowing and running like water.  It was like a nice berry pie with thickened syrup that tasted like heaven.

THIS 2nd PIE IS VERY JUICY, BUT WITH A LITTLE EXTRA FLOUR IT IS NOT WATERY ENOUGH TO RUN

I ate my slice and really wanted more.  But being midnight I knew I should stop or I’d be up for hours on a sugar high.  Breakfast will suffice.  And with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream it will be a fabulous way to start my day.

MY BEST TASTER

I LOVE THIS PIE!  WITH MORE FLOUR TO THICKEN THIS IS A GREAT RECIPE

Hope you all had better luck on the first go around with these delicious juicy pies.  It was way worth the effort, and the fun, to bake this recipe a 2nd time...and eat it a 2nd time.