A year ago | The great blackberry pie experiment

The berries on the farm were late this year... by the first of August last year, we were picking them daily. Dave picked his secret patch of native berries, the small ones that grow on ground-hugging vines. They're yummy.

Finally the warm weather worked its magic and the berries came into production mode. Enough to pick for my morning cereal... but I love it when there are plenty of berries to freeze for pies and cobblers during the winter months.

Last year Dave and I narrowed down a bunch of blackberry pie recipes to two, and I blended the two recipes together into what I hoped would end up being the perfect sweet, not-too-runny, blackberry pie. It was a hit with the family, and it's now my favorite pie recipe.

Blackberry pie... oh, my!

We all picked berries today... actually, we picked and ate. No berries made it into the house to be used in a pie. But I'm not worried; tomorrow is another day and there are a couple of acres of berries to pick!

Pennylane Farm Blackberry Pie

6 cups (1 3/4 pounds) blackberries (use 8.5–9 cups for 10-in. deep dish)
1 cup sugar
3 Tbl flour
3 tsp tapioca
juice and zest from a lemon (1 tsp juice and 1/2 teaspoon zest)
2 tbl butter, diced

Make pie dough for a double-crust pie, form into flattened rounds, wrap in plastic wrap, and put in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Everyone has their favorite, so I won't include one here. My favorite is from the Martha Stewart Cookbook.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees with a baking sheet on the middle rack.

Place the berries in a generously large bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice and lemon zest. Make sure there's enough room to comfortably stir the ingredients together.

Mix the sugar, flour, and tapioca together, then add to the berries. Toss gently, and let stand for 20 minutes. Stir the mixture occasionally; this helps extract some of the juice.

Roll out the bottom crust and place in the pie plate. I like to roll up the dough on my rolling pin, which makes it easier to move the crust without damage. Trim, leaving a half inch overhang. Spoon the blackberry mixture into the pie shell.  Dot the top with the butter.

Roll out the top and place on top of the pie. Trim, fold the edge under the bottom crust, and crimp the edges together. Pierce the top to make steam vents.  If you wish, lightly beat an egg with a tablespoon of water and brush on the top and edge of the pie.

Place the pie on the hot baking sheet in the oven and bake until the filling is bubbling, 45 minutes to 1 hour. If the crust browns too quickly, cover it with foil and continue baking. Let the pie cool before serving.

Blackberry pie... oh, my!

All those berries picked fresh on Thursday went into the freezer, bagged up for pies. Two big bags went with us to the cabin for Moore family weekend. Yesterday we had too much fun playing with baby Vivian and watching Ella learn to swim, and sending the fishermen (and women) out in various boats to try their hand at catching the perch, bass, and rainbow trout in the lake, to even think about baking pies. Kathie, my eldest sister, mixed up dough for two pies, and this afternoon I blended two filling recipes together into what I hoped would end up being the perfect sweet, not-too-runny, blackberry pie.

Dave found the recipes for me, searching online for the best options, and making notes. He takes his blackberry pie very seriously! My final recipe used both flour (not cornstarch) and instant tapioca mixed with sugar in a big bowl, then I added the berries (9 cups for my deep-dish pie plate) and lemon zest and lemon juice, and stirred occasionally for 20 minutes to allow the sugar to start breaking down the berries and making juice. While that magical chemical reaction took place, I rolled out the bottom crust (with help from Ella, my 5-year-old great niece), rolled it up on my antique rolling pin, then poured the whole gooey purple mess into the pie crust. I chose to do a full top rather than a lattice top; easier to do at the cabin with limited counter space. Ella watched the whole process and asked questions; this little girl is very interested in cooking and baking already... perhaps she'll be a master chef one day.

Into the oven it went to bake for about 80 minutes, longer than the hour specified in the recipe. Finally the juices started to bubble out of the slits, and after leaving it for 20 minutes to cool on the counter, it went into the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

Finally came the moment of truth: when I cut into the pie, will it be set up enough? Well, no.  It was a bit juicy, but not bad. The flavors were wonderful and the pie was judged a success.

The next day I mixed up the second pie and made a few changes to the filling, adding an extra tablespoon of flour and the same of tapioca. My second, slightly shallower dish needed about 8.5 cups of berries, and baked about the same amount of time. This pie set up perfectly, but it was not as sweet as the first pie. We didn't mind... with the Tillamook Vanilla Bean ice cream, it was a delicious combination. And it looked pretty good, too, especially on the rustic table my brother-in-law Bob made for us.

So next week I'll bake Pie #3, and will tweak the recipe again. I'll post the final recipe in my blog as soon as my own personal food critics give me the OK. Stay tuned...

Keeping up with blackberries… or trying to

I'm picking blackberries daily right now. They're later than usual, and it's a bumper crop.

From the latest batch I made a free-form pie sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. It was a bit juicy, so it needs modification (maybe more cornstarch in with the berries). Glad I baked the pie inside a ceramic pie plate and not on a cookie sheet as recommended! I scooped servings into bowls and topped each with vanilla bean ice cream... yummy.

The berries are amazing this year. For once we didn’t get a lot of rain, so the fruit is big and dense and has lots of flavor. I made a pie last weekend, and will make another one tonight (probably will freeze it). I’d like to pick enough to freeze several pie’s worth, so we can have blackberry pie this winter.

This afternoon I picked more blackberries and found yet another thing I love about my new refrigerator: the lower pull-out baskets in the freezer are the perfect size to hold cookie sheets full of berries for freezing. How cool is that?

I watered plants, sprayed the volunteer blackberries with Roundup, and scoped out the new “berry” bed next to the chicken coop. I’ll have lots of room for the blueberries, the gooseberry, and the rhubarb with room to spare. Maybe I’ll reserve a long strip next to the coop for raspberries… I’ll have a trellis built by next spring when I can dig plants at Laurie’s.

I need a goat

The weather's been so nice the past couple of weeks--spring in the middle of winter is kind of nice (especially when I look back on last winter!). So yesterday, in spite of housecleaning and laundry that desperately needed to be done, I changed to jeans and a sweatshirt, grabbed my leather gloves and pruners, and tackled the brambles.

The John Deere is "down" at present, but the blackberries wait for no man (or tractor). They're already sprouting, and if I don't get after them now, they'll take over. I can't do anything about the huge patches in the pastures, but I can at least clean up the fencelines.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours pruning, and made pretty good progress. Today I could hardly wait to get home from work and get back out there. I'm halfway to the chicken coop now; should make it there tomorrow.

The soles of my Merrels are full of thorns that catch on the carpet... once I finish the pruning, I can see spending a few hours with needlenose pliers to clean them out!

Blackberries

I love blackberries. Crumble, slump, cobbler, pie, cheesecake, jam... It's a good thing I like the fruit, because my little farm is fertile ground for the thorny brambles. Blackberries grow rampant in the Pacific Northwest, as anyone who lives here can attest. (I'm always amused to get gardening catalogs from the East Coast and Midwest, and see various types of blackberry vines for sale. Come here, and you can have all the plants you want for free.)

I spend 10 months of the year digging blackberry plants out of my flower beds, pulling the vines out of the trees and shrubs, and trying every method known to man to kill them off. But come August, no one touches my vines. In August, and for the next two months, the tiny green berries swell and turn dark purple. Each evening before dinner, I walk out the door, container in hand, and in a few minutes my bowl is overflowing with ripe fruit, warm from the sun. Doesn't get much better than this.