I’d have to say Blackberries are my favorite berry. I’ll admit, this may be partially due to the fact that they are free, in abundance! Blackberry jam, pie, bread, cobbler….all SO yummy! Not to mention purple, my favorite color. 🙂
When my hubby and I went for a walk last week, I was surpised to see the first of the berries were turning in little patches! Blackberry pie season it is!
Since I avoid “working” on the weekends (Yes, it is a challenge for me to stop working on my business!), I asked Jonathan if he’d pick a few berries with me today. I think we were gone from the house for about 20 minutes max. We walked up Jonathan’s nature trail to the bramble patch, with kitty trailing eagerly along. She loves to go out on walks with us! Jonathan kindly clipped the long vines out of our way and we picked away while kitty Macchiato played in the thick of the patch. In no time at all we had a generous 5 cups of berries and headed back down the hill to the house.
Making the pie crust is always the hardest part. I love baking, much more so than cooking. I have found that a good pie crust has to be made from scratch, fresh every time. I have tried freezing dough, prebaking and then freezing…nothing works even halfway as nicely as just going to the trouble to make it from scratch fresh.
I use a lovely crust recipe that my MIL gave me when Jonathan and I were first married. It is full of flaky, melt in your mouth goodness. However, I have had to greatly alter the recipe over the years as our diet choices have changed. The original recipe calls for crisco but I now make it with coconut oil. I have also successfully used butter. My favorite thing about this crust recipe is that you can add a bit extra water and it doesn’t ruin the crust. Other recipes I have used say things like “add water 1 tablespoon at a time”, or “be careful not to add too much water”. This recipe has never failed me. Now I admit, coconut oil is tricky stuff to work with. I have found the ideal tempertaure for it to work well in crust is about 70 degrees or below. Warmer than that, it turns to liquid and doesn’t mix into the dough the same way. You need to be able to mix it with a pastry blender in order for it to work properly. Fractionated coconut oil does not work the same either!
The filling is pretty simple, and I tend to change it a bit with every pie. The recipe I used this time is posted at the top of this post.
Of course the really fun part of baking is having something beautiful when you’re done. I enjoy decorating my top crust in different ways each time I bake a pie. This little LOVE cookie cutter set won this time around. My mom gave it to me as a gift a while back. She loves cookie cutters! And of course I usually have to include a bear!
