Geo's First (pretty much mostly) Homade Berry Pie

Long, long ago I made an apple pie, using Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts. It was ok, but lent further credence to the argument that Geo is a cook, not a baker. However, having some leftover blueberries which were slightly south of full ripe, and noticing the robins and squirrels beginning their annual attack on my serviceberries (Amelanchier canadensis),



I decided "It's time to make a pie." So I pulled out my all my reference cookbooks (Bittman, Cook's BEST Recipe and Joy ) and sat down to read about pie-making. Lots of interesting stuff. I finally decided that Joy's berry pie recipe was the most useful, and I could use info on crust treatment from the other two. But first, what *about* that crust? From scratch? or cheat a bit? I decided to cheat a bit, using a local product:





Note the second ingredient: saindoux/lard! No fooling around here!


Next, go pick the necessary serviceberries, and co-mingle with the blueberries. Ended up with four cups, about a quarter of which were serviceberries. After sugaring, I had:





Serviceberries have a distinct taste, tart and Platonic Ideal of wild berry. Nice! Great counterpoint to the blueberries. OK, now to roll out the bottom of the shell, and prick it a few times.




Add the berries:




Fold over the top:




Then close it all up, flute the edges and properly vent. (Note the feeble attempt to patch the hole at about 11:30!):






Following most everyone's suggestion, I egg-washed the crust:





And popped it in the oven. After a seeming eternity, this is what emerged:





My amateur status is affirmed by the crudeness of the edges: out of round and pretty rough fluting. Plus, I got a blowout (me and BP, eh?!). Oh well, the proof is in the eating, right? And here it was ready to eat:






This thing ate *extremely* well! The serviceberries were an extraordinarily suitable addition to the blueberries: their specific flavor, plus their tartness, produced a blend far more than the sum of its parts. "Geo," said TODG, "this is a VERY good pie!", which, coming from an accomplished baker such as she, was a very pleasing compliment.

The crust itself was a Fine Thing, albeit too thick, and out of round. But these are things I can fix with practice. All in all, a satisfying experience. Sure wish I had some serviceberries left on my tree...

Geo

Geo,

Pie looks beautiful and, I must say, it is not easy to get such a clean slice - great job!

Jyoti

Geo,

I think you have made a terrible mistake. Using those berries is very dangerous. Please ship that pie to me for proper disposal before anyone gets hurt.

That is one heck of a nice-looking pie, Geo! FWIW, I never worry about blowouts - I just assume they're going to happen. Where I worry - and where you seem to have succeeded excellently well - is that I've added sufficient thickener to make the pie sliceable, but not so much that you loose the texture of the filling. Nice work!

Piecrust is not so hard to make, esp. if you do it ahead of time and leave it in the freezer for future use. (See Cooking with Sparky for our modified-food-processor method) There's also the Pioneer Woman version, even easier and still very good.

Geo, it is beautiful! And made even more wonderful by the inclusion of wild foods harvested by you yourself. --Joy

Nicely done Geo! Also, homemade pie should look rustic-- that is part of its charm.

Jen

Wait, how do you still have serviceberries? Mine come out in early Spring right when the robins reappear and are (not coincidentally) gone in a week.

Up here they're also called "Juneberries" because they fruit in June.

There are different species, and different varietals, which might account for our differences in fruiting time. We're also a bit more winter-ish than Chicago (something I imagine some of you might find hard to believe!).

Geo

Did not realize you are in Montreal. That would explain it all right. Well, whatever the month, your serviceberry tree looks much, much better than mine.

Your pie looked great. Making your own pie crust is fun and won't be much of a step for you if you've already baked a pie that impressive. I use recipes with oil but I roll the crust out between two sheets of wax paper, take off the top sheet, and then carefully get the crust into the pie pan with the bottom sheet. Any holes or thin areas can be patched up with extra crust from the thicker areas.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/ ... ust-recipe

Growing up in the South, we usually used Crisco. I've used butter, too. Still haven't tried lard. There are lots of pie crust recipes and it's fun to experiment with them. Happy baking!

I am not a fan of oil pie crust, although they are very easy to make. However, having just whipped up a crust for a pie I'll make later today...I thought I'd share my technique.

I use the proportions from my ancient Betty Crocker CB (the three ring binder version) combined with a few Alton Brown tricks.

2 C flour
1tsp salt
2/3 C fat (I prefer 1/2 butter and 1/2 shortening) make sure the fat is really cold (frozen even)
5 to 7 Tbsp ice water

Put the flour and salt in a food processor. Give it a quick pulse to mix. I put a tea towel on top of the bowl to keep the puffing factor under control.

Add fat and pulse a few times to combine. With the FP running, add water one T at a time and pulse briefly after you've drizzled the water in. Use only enough water to bring the mix together. Depending on the weather and your flour, this might take less than 5 or it might take the whole 7. Use a light touch with the pulse button--short quick bursts.

Then put the dough in a zip top bag and stick it in the fridge to chill thoroughly. Split this into two pieces for a double crust pie.

I've never really gotten the idea of using a food processor to make crust. To me it's just extra dishes to clean and takes the fun out of cutting in the butter or shortening by hand.

Last year Juneberries pretty much perfectly hit June and were gone by July 1.

This year, they were still green and hard when I went looking for them yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon there were five robins (one of which was a fledgling) and one squirrel working on my Juneberries. Only the hard green ones are left... who said these critters don't have color vision??

Geo

grits wrote:I've never really gotten the idea of using a food processor to make crust. To me it's just extra dishes to clean and takes the fun out of cutting in the butter or shortening by hand.

I always freeze my fats - and when I have several pies to make where the extra dishes are worth it, I use the grating wheel. Otherwise I use a hand grater and like the results I get.

Michelle,

What do you do-take the grated bits and mix them into the flour by hand (or, rather, grate the fat *into* the bowl of flour and mix?) Sounds interesting, and certainly saves cleaning the processor.

And, 'scuze my iggorance, but what's a 'grating wheel'?

Geo

Grating wheel meaning the grater in a food processor. Perhaps disk is a better choice of words - but I don't use the blade, because it doesn't guarantee even little bits of fat.

As far as mixing with flour, I've done both, either grating and then dumping into the flour, or grating directly into it. Either way, you'll need to toss the little grated curlicues in the flour - and for that I use my hands - if the butter is really, really frozen solid, it needs to thaw a little so it will combine properly with the dough, and normal handling will do that for you. I happen to own a grater that you can set across the top of the bowl, very handy for this purpose; it's kind of like this one. You want one that has the large holes for coarsely grating cheese.

In another forum, someone mentioned that they dredge the stick of butter in flour before grating, to reduce the mess.

Tnx, M. I like the idea of grating into the bowl. This would be perfect, but it doesn't have any cutting edges on it, so it probably won't work.

Geo