Sunday, July 3, 2011

bumbleberry pie

Early last week, I bought a bunch of different kinds of berries because they were on sale. I also had other fruits on hand, so the berries weren't eaten as fast as they should have been. Then I remembered that I was supposed to bake a blackberry pie for this edition of Baked Sunday Mornings. So I decided to use the berries to make a bumbleberry pie instead, to the great delight of my husband, who 1) love pie more than any other dessert in the world, and 2) has fond memory of, and still talks about, a bumbleberry pie he ate at least 4 years ago.

So, I set out to make the pie as per Matt and Renato's recipe in Baked Explorations, replacing the 7 cups of blackberries for 7 cups of a mixture of blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. Yes. 7 cups of berries! (I never make pies, so this seems outrageous to me.)


I'm not a big fan of making crusts of any kind (although joining this baking group has me practicing), but, with my husband cheering me on, I'm happy to report that the crust part of this pie went really well.


While the crust was chilling in the fridge, I made the fruit filling, adding sugars, flour, lemon juice and lemon zest to the berries. Plopped the filling in the pie crust, dot the top with butter, cover the whole thing with the top crust, egg wash the crust and sprinkle it with sugar. Shoved it in the oven with instructions to my husband to take it out when the timer went off.


When I got home and checked on the pie, the little pool of berry juice that had collected on top if the crust hinted at a thin filling, but I was not expecting the mess that was this pie when I cut into it. Berry Soup. It might have been because I substituted other berries for the blackberries. Or the wrong thickener for berry pies. In any case, I don't recommend this recipe.

We ate some, and it was ok, if you could get over the look of it, but it wasn't spectacular. After it sat uneaten for a little longer, (and after I caught my daughter with a straw trying to drink the filling) I actually "drained" it by tilting the pie into a sieve, and returned the fruit to the pie, discarding the liquid. Still, it didn't scream "eat me, I'm delicious".  It's the first time I had to throw out pie because no one ate it. It was good, especially the crust, but it looked awful! I'm sorry to say that this little adventure did not encourage me to start making more pies. I'm actually a little bit apprehensive, since the next recipe for this baking group is another pie... We'll see if I get to it. If you want to check out how the other members of the group fared with their pie, please visit the Baked Sunday Mornings blog!


11 comments:

  1. Your pie certainly looks delicious. Sorry that the taste wasn't what you were hoping for. I think a lot of us ended up with berry soup, and we'll need to play around with the thickener a little. I agree that 7 cups of berries seemed out of control. I almost didn't participate this week because it was so many berries to use in one pie!

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  2. Oh, such a shame you didn't like this pie -- your pie looks so pretty! Even though I also ended up with berry soup, I still enjoyed it with ice cream. I've got high hopes for the peaches and dream pie coming up next; at least it's a single crust pie so we'll be able to see what's going on inside before we cut it! :)

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  3. I can relate to your berry soup. Sad. After I made my 2nd pie no one wanted the soup pie so the bottom crust turned to sog...probably will get tossed. Really sad.

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  4. Sorry this didn't work out for you! I love the photo of the berries and your pie is really pretty.

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  5. I agree about the berry soup, but we had a good time eating it anyway. Next time, I would add more thickener I think.

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  6. Well atleast your pie was beautiful! Your crust looks amazing!

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  7. You never would have known it didn't work out based on your photos:) It looks devine...

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  8. Berry pies do take an inordinate amount of berries. Sorry that this wasn't great, but I think your daughter had the right idea!

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  9. I didn't get to make this pie because I was out of town, but it sounds like some of the others had the same problem with the filling. It sure looks beautiful though!

    Thank you for tweeting me about the FB link for our links this Sunday. I am looking forward to making the peaches and cream pie.

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  10. i envy you guys in the western hemisphere who can get good quality berries without costing a fortune! i'm absolutely adding you on my list of people to follow cos your pastry products are simply amazing!!!!

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  11. Thank you! It sounds like we all had the same problem, so it wasn't you - if I make this again, I'll add 1 - 2 tsps of Arrowroot to the filling.

    I baked the Peaches & Dream Pie last night & since there's no photo in the book, I'm curious to see how they all turn out!

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