Tag Archives: blackberry

Peach Berry Pie

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Berry Pie, Summer Fruit Pie

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We’re on the road. After three months spent almost solely in our California home, we are on the move. Typically, you’ll find us at various airports over the summer. This year, our trusty Toyota Highlander is getting us from all our point As to point Bs.

The 2020 Gelineau Family Road Trip is brought to you by lots of prayer, Peppa Pig paraphernalia, cucumber facial wipes, Pippa’s portable potty, and a bottle of hand sanitizer in every car door. We have listened to the Daniel Tiger Song “A Tiger Family Trip” at least 65 times.

I’ve logged a few new states, which is exciting for me as someone who keeps a world map with places-visited pins on my mantel. Colorado, Missouri, Kansas. At one point we drove 99 miles past my cell phone, which is a story for another time, but I got it back that same night. Wonder of wonders.

We spent two nights in Kansas City, Spotted: An “Uncle Teo” in his native habitat. (That’s what Pippa calls our friend Matt, of Dragonfruit Sea Creature Angel Pie fame.)

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Matt grew up in Kansas City, but doesn’t live there anymore. It felt both surreal and comforting to be together at his childhood home. Anyone else having this problem, where you can’t remember the last time you actually hung out in person with your friends because you’ve been Zooming too much?

As it turns out, Pippa doesn’t love back to back car travel days, so we took a short breather in KC. On the morning of our rest day, Matt said to me, in a way both offhanded and carefully considered, “One thing we could today, if you wanted, is make pie. There’s definitely everything you need to make a pie here.”

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After considering the fruit available to me, I chose blackberries, a mixture of blueberries (some larger and fresh, and some smaller Wyman’s frozen wild blueberries), and a few peaches. Then we had a lesson in lattice-weaving. My pie lattice technique (first learned from Ken Haedrich) doesn’t involve meticulous spacing or measuring, but it certainly gets the job done.

Typically I’ll sculpt leftover pie crust around the pie edges to make a ridge, especially for a single-crust pie or a pie with a crumb topping. Sensing that we didn’t need much extra pastry on this one, I cut around the pie plate with a knife, bound the edges together by pressing them with a fork, and donated the extra pastry to Pippa, who, at the time, wanted to use it as play-dough.

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In the afternoon we got a brief, Covid-19 Era tour of Kansas City. A few snapshots below. (The internet is not kind these days, but I know you are, my readers. ❤ I’ll say it anyway, just to be clear…we are not dismissing what is happening around us and though the pictures don’t show us wearing masks, we are always masked when it is required and/or when we are walking even remotely near fellow humans. Please trust that in all of our travels we are being as prudent as we know how.)

First stop: Levi’s first and not last E & T (espresso and tonic) experience. So impressed with Thou Mayest. Yes, that is tajín on the rim.

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Then, a stop at the imposingly beautiful World War I memorial. I never knew Kansas City had such a skyline.

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Boulevard Brewing was a fun destination; I’ve been a fan of their Tank 7 Saison for some years now. We tried several brews including the following “Test Beer”. My jaw dropped open when I read the description. Read along with me carefully now.

“Peach Berry Pie Berliner Weisse – Bursting with peach, blueberry & blackberry over a light graham cracker crust” Wait what?!

Okay yeah it’s not a perfect match (no graham cracker crust for my pie) but still. Spooky.

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In the evening, we ate pie and ice cream on the back deck and ogled at/conversed with several barred owls. Whatever else is going on, there is always wonder and inspiration to be found in Creation.

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Dragonfruit Sea Creature Angel Pie

12 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by in Berry Pie, Meringue Pie, Summer Fruit Pie

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Angel Pie with Berries, Cream, and Custard is the “real” name of the showstopper featured in this blog post, but Dragonfruit Sea Creature Angel Pie is so much more descriptive and enticing, don’t you think? Let me show you how it was done.

First, let’s define “angel pie”. I’m still trying to figure out what the technical difference is between an angel pie and a pavlova…both feature a large meringue base as the main event. From what I have seen, angel pies typically are filled with a cream filling (like my Grandmother’s Chocolate Angel Pie) while pavlovas feature mainly fruit. This particular angel pie is meant to be filled with both whipped cream and fruit and topped with a sweet Creme Anglaise sauce made with lots of egg yolks (genius, when you need so many whites for the meringue!)

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During our 8 month stay in Los Angeles, I only made one “new” pie from Ken Haedrich’s cookbook Pie while AT our apartment (the others were all made during travels). There’s something poetic about an angel pie living on in memory as the pie of the City of Angels.

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The meringue is shown above, ready to be baked low and slow. Forming a shape out of meringue, even if it’s just a basic bowl shape, is something I find tricky yet enjoyable. The texture is just so wild. It’s hard to believe that egg, sugar, and cream of tartar can turn into this pliable, bouncy, expansive substance. I also pretended that I was on The Great British Bake-Off while I was preparing this base. Paul Hollywood probably wouldn’t have been pleased with my final product, as there was a slightly visible hairline fracture, but I was pleased enough.

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As usual, my biggest pie-making challenge is timing. I rarely leave hours in between stages of baking as suggested, as the need to eat the pie always seems pressing…but I let this base cool as long as humanly possible before filling and decorating.

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As far as the decorating, I can take very little, if any, credit. This pie was for our dear friend Matt’s birthday. He had been visiting us in LA for a week and we made the pie on the last night of his stay (which we wished we could extend indefinitely/forever). Matt is one of my top pie sous chefs, a sculptor, and a lover of whales and giant squids, so naturally he set to work carving intricate sea creatures out of dragonfruit purchased from the Japanese market across the way.

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Another artistic touch by Matt…halving blackberries to line the pie’s border. Excellent.

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Here we see the pie really coming together–the basin has been filled with homemade whipped cream, waves of berries are crashing from within, extending over the shore, and a dragonfruit sea turtle surfaces for a quick hello.

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Finished creation featuring four sea creature friends: a whale, a turtle, a seahorse, and a starfish.

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I am not embarrassed to report that the four people eating pie that night (I’m not counting the baby-Levi’s mom helped us out, his dad having decided that chocolate ice cream from Salt and Straw was more his speed than Dragonfruit Sea Creature Angel Pie) decided to simply quarter the whole thing and FULLY consumed it in one sitting. All that was left over was some of the Creme Anglaise, which I totally forgot to take pictures of, but which we did enjoy drizzled onto our pie quarters, as well as on Matt’s birthday breakfast pancakes the next morning.

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I can’t help but smile every time I think about Dragonfruit Sea Creature Angel Pie. Thanks Matt for the ways in which you light up our life. ❤

Pie for a 19-year-old

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by in Berry Pie, Mixed Fruit Pie, Summer Fruit Pie

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Some things about our trips to Minnesota are pretty standard.

Uncle Joe takes us to the best fishing spots.

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Levi and I catch fish. (This was a particularly successful day.)

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Aunt Sarah cleans our fishes in anticipation of fish dinner.

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Grandmom leads fish dinner preparations, breading the filets perfectly. My mouth is literally watering just looking at these pictures.

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Levi and I sneak away to the Brookside Tavern (the only bar in Marine-on-St. Croix, next to the only gas station and across from the only general store) for glasses of Farm Girl.

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Sometimes, depending on the time of year, we get to do things that are out-of-the-ordinary. This year we happened to visit in mid-August, right around my cousin Matt’s 19th birthday.

Now, Matt has plenty of his own summertime/cabin rituals. One place he can very predictably found for at least part of every day is on the couch, reading voraciously.

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Matt also has traditions that he plans out in advance and shares with us during our visits; these include bonfires complete with Reese’s S’mores and scary stories (which he retells with much suspenseful inflection and an impressive memory for detail), movie nights, and of course, trips to the (only) ice cream store. He is a remarkably thoughtful host.

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Truth be told, Matt has been a long-time supporter of my pies, whether or not they are specifically referred to as his birthday pie. But this one really WAS a birthday pie. You can tell by the 19 on top.

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Although I have already baked my way through so many of the fruit pies in the Pie cookbook, I was luckily able to find and prepare this lovely new specimen for Matt’s birthday festivities: Deep-Dish Blackberry-Peach Double-Crust Pie.

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There were several fun new pie tricks to try in the making of this recipe. For one, the peaches are called upon for blanching. I hadn’t blanched peaches before. I’m not much of a blancher in general.

Jury’s still out on how useful that was, as I’m pretty handy with a paring knife, and I think I could have peeled the peaches in far less time than it took to boil the water, try to determine when the peaches were actually finished (although Ken does give very good, clear directions on the process) and then scrape off the remaining skin as not all of it really came off nicely. Either way, it was fun to try a different method-and I can definitely see how, when executed properly, blanching could cut back on wasting delicious bits of fruit that might be cut off with a knife.

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Another of the fun new tricks: freshly grated nutmeg. I’m rather ashamed to say that this was new to me. I apologize for dashing your visions of me happily grating whole nutmeg tendrils into every pie filling that had ever called for nutmeg. I usually just shake it out of a jar. But Grandmom had a whole nutmeg and a cute teeny nutmeg grater at her house and once I saw this, I knew it was meant to be. Fresh nutmeg, you smell so good.

Have you ever thought about what a funny word “nutmeg” is?

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Add some freshly grated lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, butter, and cornstarch and you’ve got a pie fit for a 19-year-old.

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We won’t be together for Matt’s 20th birthday this summer, but I look forward to a visit next week that will hopefully include all of our favorite cousin traditions…including pie!

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Recently

09 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in Apple Pie, Berry Pie, Mini Pie, Pie Destinations

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Hi everyone! I hope you’re all having a fabulous fall. photo 1I’d like to share a little milestone of late. As you know (unless you’re brandy new to reading this blog) I figured out a while back that pies can be baked in glass jars and shipped rather easily. Sometimes the post office does a better job with the speed of delivery than other times, but I have definitely mailed and/or carried onto planes a decent number of pies in jars now. Maybe fifty? Anyway. Here’s the milestone. Last month I filled an actual order for a pie shipment. I.e. a lovely lady I know asked me to mail her son pie for his October birthday, and so I made two little apple blackberry pies and mailed them to Wisconsin and she paid me. So if I ever get around to starting a legit pie-in-a-jar business, Jaci and Croix can have the honor of being my first ever customers. Thanks so much! I hope they were delicious!

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photo 3In other recent happenings, Levi and I visited Richmond, VA last weekend, primarily for my girl Liz’s wedding. It’s one of the special places in my heart and it was so good to be there and to spend the weekend with a bunch of my favorite people.

On Sunday afternoon, we went to a delight of a place called The Proper Pie Co. My word. We bought savory hand pies and sweet slices, headed to a park with a load of blankets, and ate and traded bites with each other (Butter Chicken, Broccoli and Cheese, Lamb and Vegetable, Curried Lentil and Spinach, Key Lime, Sweet Potato and Pecan, Peach and Blackberry…I mean, really.) Afterwards I laid down with my head on my best friend’s lap and declared (to no one’s surprise) that I was in my happy place.

photo 2(New Zealand friends, please appreciate the verbiage under the coffee column…:))

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I was told that this pie is made with vanilla poached slices of sweet potato. Because, why not.

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We are blessed. Check back for another (not-so-recent) pie story later this week!

 

The Secret Life of Pies

06 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by in Berry Pie, Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

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I mentioned in my last post that there is often not enough pie to go around at the Camp. And it’s true. If I had an abundance of time and fruit trees, I’d feed pie to everyone every day. Since the sad truth is that I cannot produce pies at this rate, the distribution of available pie sometimes turns into a rather covert affair, including late night rendezvous, fork-fights, and sometimes even bribery. IMG_1151

I was lucky enough to get to stay in my friends Rachel and Vinnie’s cabin during Operation Onesimus again this year. For more explanation on what that is, you should jump back to this post from last year regarding the Onesipies. I once again faced the same challenges to pie baking, including the lack of a proper rolling pin (see above.)

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I didn’t follow a recipe for either of the pies featured in this post. This first one featured a combination of delights from the local farm…blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries. (The rolling pin was from the farm too and was also a delight when mixed with sparkling water and limes, for the record.)

Can I just say that it is extremely difficult to keep pie crust from browning in a very tiny and very hot oven? And can I also say, I’m getting pretty proud of my lattice-weaving abilities. A little crooked, yes. But steadily improving.
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This pie was also largely berry-based, but had a healthy helping of white peaches in it too.IMG_1212IMG_1214

I got fancy with the top crust here and grated it with a cheese grater, the way Ken taught me how to when I made his Rainier Cherry Pie.IMG_1217

This is Rick Szabo. Pie is his self-proclaimed favorite thing.

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True love.

I guess the secret’s out now. Onesimus attendees, you now know something that you may have suspected and feared already…namely, that your teachers and cooks don’t go to bed early. They stay up and eat pie. Without you. Sorry about that.

(Hey, at least now you know so that next year you can try to sneak into the secret pie parties…right?!)

(Warning: the picture below may contain graphic violence.)

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Suffice it to say that this pie did not survive the night.

Now, let’s turn our attention to Mr. Grated Crust. He was being enjoyed a sneaky slice at a time by various friends and relations.

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Sometimes when you leave part of a pie in your cabin, you come back to find that it has greatly diminished in size. In this instance, the pie thieves left a thoughtful payment of pocket change wrapped in a paper towel, placed neatly in the then-emptier pie pan.

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What kinds of things have you done to get your hands on some pie?

Pie Upon Pie

22 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by in Berry Pie

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Levi starts to get really happy right around Memorial Day Weekend, because “It’s almost summer, and in summer the pies really pick up the pace.”

True.

Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching. But it kind of consumes my life during the school year, and by the end of May, I am as squirmy for summer vacation as my eight-year-olds are.

LOOK AT THIS RHUBARB! Thank you, Whole Foods, for actually having some awfully decent stuff. It’s hard to come by in California.

Photo1To kick off Memorial Day weekend, much to Levi’s disgust, I made a Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumb Pie and gave the whole thing away to my cousin Alisa for her birthday. (I had made it once before.) Hope it was delicious, Jennings family!

Photo1-1We had guests for the long weekend, Celia and Ken from Baltimore. On Saturday night we had our first chaotic bring-something-to-share-don’t-mind-the-mess-or-the-dog-he-just-wants-to-eat-all-your-food barbecue on the patio. Good times. For this event I did make a new pie…Three-Berry Shortcake Pie. Man, berries are just SO delicious at this time of year.

photoMaybe it’s just cause I’m writing this post from Minnesota, but I can’t help thinking that little berry juice formation in the middle of the pie looks just exactly like Lake Michigan and Lake Superior…right?!! Or am I crazy?

photo-1Other highlights of the weekend included an excursion to the Getty Villa in Malibu and a jaunt to Chinatown. It was fun being in Chinatown so shortly after being in China. A bit anticlimactic though, to be serious.

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Photo1-4I found the mini pies. I tried the Black Bean variety. It was satisfactory. I’m now a bit interested in figuring out if there is some sort of pie in every culture. Besides bean paste pies and egg tarts (which I had in China) I can think of empanadas, quiches, savory meat pies, pasties, Jamaican patties…Could a samosa be considered a mini pie? Hmm. Will have to consider this further.

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Photo1-5Now that it really is summer, I’m making pies much faster than I can post about them. Stay tuned, and–as always–thanks for reading.

 

Pie-in-a-Jar!

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Apple Pie, Mixed Fruit Pie, Summer Fruit Pie

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Pie-in-a-Jar is as exciting as it sounds.

  • They’re pies. In JARS.
  • They’re so super cute.
  • I think they would hold up really well in the mail. Big question is whether they’ll hold up internationally. Now taking domestic and international volunteers to help me test this theory out.

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A year ago, I send some normal pie pies (as opposed to pie-in-a-jar pies) to a bake sale in Palm Springs benefitting the school I teach at. You can read that post here. This year, I was asked to contribute again to the same sale. I decided to make mini pies in jars this year after pondering the following key points.

  • What’s better than a slice of pie? A whole pie to yourself.
  • What’s more socially acceptable than eating a whole pie? Eating a whole mini pie.
  • What’s easier to transport than a jar with a lid?…Nothing.

(My points just seem to be rolling out in groups of three this evening.)

This post from Our Best Bites provided me with some inspiration, and even comes with some rather adorable labels to top your jars with. It’s worth checking out if you’re interested in making your own pies-in-a-jar. For my part, I did what I usually do…read some blog posts on the subject at hand, then decided not to follow any of the recipes after all. So, in all accuracy, I probably couldn’t replicate these exact mini pies ever again.

(Awkward silence as you ponder how unhelpful of a blog writer I really am…)

I made two types of pies-in-a-jar; a pretty basic apple pie with lots of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, lemon and lemon zest) and a pear and mixed berry pie (strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, almond extract).

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I love how they look here, all packaged up and ready to travel!

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Have you ever tried baking pies (or anything else) in a jar? I would love to hear:

  • Stories about YOUR mini pie experiences, or questions about mine.
  • Interest in being a mail-tester for a pie-jar (depending on the number of comments I receive, I’ll put your name in a drawing.)
  • Which of the two above flavors you would have purchased had YOU attended the bake sale?

Pie Sold Here

21 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Berry Pie, Chocolate Pie, Freeform Pie, Mixed Fruit Pie, Nut Pie

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And for a good cause!

If you back up a few posts, you’ll find the flyer I posted prior to the auction. It went off pretty much without a hitch, I’d say, and we raised about $500 for the Glendale Relay for Life. Thanks so much to everyone who baked, bought, or just came and participated in some good, ol’ fashioned fun.

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P.S. If you’re interested in seeing close-ups of the 5 pies I baked, move on over to the Pie Gallery page and check out pies 91-95. Which one would you have placed a bid on?

Memorial Day Memories

09 Saturday Jun 2012

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**Blackberry Sour Cream Pie, made with blackberries and raspberries.

 

The hardest step of the recipe (as usual) was allowing time for the pie to cool before eating. 

Credit to Jen and Chris Wubbels for creating the epic menu, having all of us over at their home, and cooking most of the food. Maggie, your Strawberry Rosewater Cobbler was wonderful. Look for a rosewater pie…very soon.

American Pie

01 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in Berry Pie, Freeform Pie

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Summer is upon us. In California, the only real difference is that you can go to the beach and sit on the sand and not actually freeze to death (though you’ll still do that if you attempt to venture into the water). The sun is a little sunnier, people are a little happier, and the end of the school year is in sight, meaning that there will be more time to bake lots and lots of pies.

If pie is the ultimate American dessert, than a berry pie is the ultimate American summer dessert. One weekend in May, Levi and I decided to preemptively celebrate the coming summer by having an Americana-steeped weekend. We spent time at the Simi Valley street fair, purchased and consumed some summery brews, grilled hamburgers on our barbeque. To go along with the theme, Levi decided that it would be a good idea to listen to country music on Pandora. (I’m still trying to figure out what possessed him.) And of course, I made a berry pie.

Patsy’s Mixed Berry Freeform Pie is unique for several reasons.

  1. The crust contains several unusual ingredients such as cottage cheese, a good amount of sugar, and baking powder. The texture of the finished pastry is fluffier and stickier than your average crust, and the baked end result is rather cakey and delicious.
  2. It has a gooey cream cheesy layer underneath the berries. What a nice surprise!
  3. It’s freeform (as you might have already ascertained by its name). If you don’t know what a freeform pie is, you’re in luck—I just so happen to have some pictures to show you!
To make a freeform pie, you don’t need a pie pan. Just a foil-lined baking sheet will do. This pastry dough is sticky to the point of annoying, so the foil is a necessary step. The rolled out crust goes on the baking sheet, and then a sweet cream cheese mixture is spread over the center in a circle. Like so.

A very hopeful Bear.

Then the berries get dumped in the middle. I used blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries…the more the berrier! Har har har.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for the fun part…rolling up the edges. You just fold in one section at a time and the dough forms pleats. I used a spatula for a little extra help.

Bake until the crust is golden brown, top with vanilla ice cream OF COURSE, and share with friends.

Andrew and Marjorie are cute pie models.

Happy almost-summer, all.