Thursday, July 3, 2008

The Pie Recipe

You can use blackberries, blueberries, and rhubarb as well for this pie. I hope you consider this a "keeper".

1 1/3 C. Half & Half
1 C. sugar
1/2 t. salt
4 T. plus 1t. flour
dash cinnamon

2 C. fresh berries, cleaned and drained

In a small saucepan, barely heat all of the above ingredients enough just to dissolve the sugar. I don't get it hot-just whisk it enough to make it smooth and take off the heat. In the bottom of a prepared pie shell, put in 2 cups of the berries. Pour mixture over berries and bake 50 minutes @ 375 degrees. Middle will be slightly shaky like a custard pie. Let cool if you can.

You can reduce the sugar to 2/3 cup if using strawberries or blueberries. This recipe is very forgiving. I've used heavy cream instead of Half & Half and reduced the flour slightly and it came out beautiful as well.

Happy summer!

It's black raspberry season!


Living in the country (or city) black raspberries are nearly everywhere for a short time. People pick until the freezer are full, they're sick of pie, have made enough jam, or just plain tired of looking at them. Terrible thing to be burned out on wild black raspberries. We have a friend that has gallon bags of them in the freezer that never get used. Yeh, yeh, it's a sin. kinda like finding more morels than you'll ever eat. Like that happens to me anymore!!! Anyway, it's the day before the big fireworks and I'm gearing up to go pick some berries again. I've made 3 black raspberry cream pies and 7 jars of freezer jam and still fired up about getting stuck by thorns, bitten by mosquitos and getting poison ivy. What am I thinking?!!! I'm thinking pie. In our neck of the woods there's Old Order Baptist and Menonite women that seem to excel in pie baking. While picking blueberries last year I was able to get a recipe in coversation on how they make thier berry cream pies. There's a layer of fruit and a sweet creamy layer that sinks to the bottom that has to be one of the best combinations ever. I've tweaked it slightly but it's really pure, simple and totally deserving of the hours of picking one can put in.