Blackberry Pie

I usually don't post recipes that I've taken from other sources without having modified them at all. But I adore Isa Chandra Moskowitz and and Terry Hope Romero and their vegan baking wizardry, and I want to share the recipe for this pie, which tastes like a tart mouthful of summer. Two lemons plus blackberry liqueur plus a pailful of berries make for an outstanding rustic dessert. Bring on a scoop of organic vanilla ice cream and you'll be flying off the porch swing.

serves 8

Ingredients

 

Crust

 

2 1/2 cups flour
pinch salt
3 Tbsp sugar
8 Tbsp cold Earth Balance
8 Tbsp cold shortening
6 Tbsp ice water
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

 

Filling

 

6 heaping cups blackberries
zest of 2 lemons
3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice (about two lemons' worth)
2/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp blackberry brandy or Chambord
3 Tbsp cornstarch
pinch cinnamon

 

Process

 

Crust

 

Sift flour and salt in a large mixing bowl.

Mix in sugar.

Add 4 Tbsp each of Earth Balance and shortening, crumbling them into the flour with your hands until the flour gets pebbly.

Add the rest of the Earth Balance and shortening. Your flour should be VERY pebbly.

Mix the ice water and vinegar and drizzle it into the flour, massaging it in as you go. Add more water if you need to, but do so slowly so as to avoid the dreaded soggy crust.

Divide the dough into two equal rounds. Press the rounds into disks and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate them until you're ready to use them, or freeze them if you're going to take a day or so to make your pie.

 

Filling 

 

Preheat oven to 425.

In a large bowl, toss together berries, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, brandy or Chambord, cornstarch, and cinnamon. Easy!

Roll out pie crust to fit a 9-inch pie plate. I do this by placing the dough between two large sheets of parchment paper and rolling it out in all directions until it's flat and thin. I then take a leap of faith that it will be large enough for the pie plate and feverishly mush it flatter if it isn't.

Heap filling into bottom crust.

Roll out the top crust and place on top, pinching sides into place and poking top with a fork.

Note that this is vegan dough, and so extremely soft, with no gluten whatsoever. The recipe calls for cutting it into strips so as to create a lattice filling: yeah right! This is for braver souls than I. My crust was a ragged heap of disparate scraps, but they bonded in the baking process, making for an almost-normal-looking crust (see above).

Bake for 20 minutes, then lower heat to 350 and bake for another 30-35 minutes, until golden-brown and bubbly. Cool on a wire rack for at least half an hour before digging in.

Notes

• The filling can't be beat. I'm a huge fan of citrus in desserts, and the blend of tart and sweet, with a hint of liqueur, somehow makes for the archetypal blackberry experience.
• The crust is not bad for a vegan crust. It's sandy and flavorful; however, it gets soggy relatively quickly. If you're planning to keep the pie around for a few days and don't care whether or not it's vegan, use these ingredients, as found in this whiskey apple pie recipe: 2 cups flour, pinch salt, 15 tablespoons cold butter (almost 2 sticks) and 1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp cold water. I've had great success with this yummy, flaky crust.
• I highly recommend all of the dessert books put out by Isa Chandra and Terry Hope. Their cookie and cupcake books produce to-die-for desserts every time. I've only just started using their pie book, but this recipe seems a harbinger of good things to come.

Verdict

4 stars; would be 5 with a butter crust (but at least use pasture-raised butter).

Rosy Blackberry Cobbler

Packed with summer-fresh berries, sliced peach, and rhubarb, this cobbler features a silky buttermilk topping. Two lemons' worth of zest marries happily with the fruits, transporting you to a sun-dappled orchard in which you romp through brambles, mouth stained with purple. I made this cobbler after a berry-picking expedition at Homestead Farm in Poolesville, Maryland.

 

Ingredients

 

1 stick butter
2 lemons

4 cups blackberries
2 peaches, thinly sliced
2-3 stalks rhubarb, sliced
3/4 cup sugar
dusting of grated nutmeg
dash or two of cinnamon
dash of ground ginger
3 Tbsp cornstarch

2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
dash or two of cinnamon
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups buttermilk

Process

Preheat the oven at 350.

Get out a 9 x 13 baking pan. No need to grease!

Melt the stick of butter in a small saucepan. When mostly melted, with one thin rectangle bobbing in its golden bath, remove from heat. The rectangle will vanish into its hot tub.

zest both lemons, producing a tinselly heap. Cut one of the lemons in half.

Toss fruit into a large bowl. Add the sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and cornstarch. Toss with hands to combine. It's going to be glorious! Add half the lemon zest and half the melted butter. Toss some more. Oh yes!

Pour the fruit into the baking pan, spreading it so that it's even.

In another bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Add the other half of the lemon zest. Pour in the butter and buttermilk and fold into the flour. Batter will be slightly lumpy. No overmixing!

Spread the batter over the fruit. In typical Toppled Chef style, I scooped and spread it with my bare hands. It worked out pretty well.

Bake for 45-55 minutes, until fruit is bubbling and top is golden brown.

Pull out and let cool on a wire rack. I'd eat this the next day for breakfast, but you can always serve hot with a scoop of ice cream.

Notes

 

• For the flour, I used 1 cup white and 1 1/2 cups white wheat, with a healthy shaking of flax, which is why you see speckles in the photo. You don't have to be this granola. However, any combination of flours should work. The butter and the buttermilk will ensure a tender crust.
• Likewise, you can use any combination of fruits. I happen to love the earthy blackberries jazzed with rubescent stalk fruit and mellowed with peach, but blueberry-strawberry-nectarine would be just as good.
• What kind of cobbler is this? It isn't a cakey cobbler, where the dough rises through the fruit, but the topping isn't quite a biscuit topping, as it's too runny to form mounds. It's more of a lazy fruit pie with a biscuity slump on top. This works for the Tipsy Crumpet!
• Note that the knife test doesn't work to test doneness. I pulled the cobbler out of the oven after 30 minutes because the knife came out clean. The next morning, my heart sank as I spooned out a wad of fruit clumped with undercooked batter. It was edible, but I had to put the cobbler back into the oven for another HOUR to get it to an acceptable level of non-rawness. This did the trick, in case the same kitchen pratfall occurs to you.
• Some people like a sugary cobbler. Not I! The 1 1/2 cups of sugar in this recipe go toe-to-toe with the double whammy of lemon zest and a heap of rhubarb. If you like your dessert to feel more like a slap on the face, this is the one for you.
• This makes a delightful Sunday breakfast.

Verdict

 

4 stars. Quite good, if you like your cobbler topped with a tender crust and filled with the textures, scents, and colors of summer.

Blackberry Pie Bars

This recipe is nabbed and adapted from Annie's Eats. When I saw the berries nestled in the shortbread crust with tart yogurt filling and buttery crumb topping, I had to make these bars. I added some spices and cut the sugar in the original recipe by half. The bars were still as sweet as pie.  

 for a 9 × 17 pan

feeds quite a lot of people, as the bars have so much butter, you'd topple over were you to eat more than one serving

Ingredients 

3 cups pastry flour
¾ cup sugar
dash salt
zest of one lemon
3 sticks butter, cold

4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup Greek yogurt
12 Tbsp pastry flour (I'm sure there's a more effective cup measurement)
dash salt
1 tsp or more of cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
a few flutterings of freshly grated nutmeg
hint of allspice
juice of one lemon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
30-32 oz. blackberries (two large crates and one small, plus a handful more, if desired)

sugar and cinnamon for topping 

Process

Preheat the oven to 350.

Grease the baking pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, and lemon zest.

Slice the butter, then add to the bowl with the dry ingredients. Process with an implement or with your bare hands, Dothraki-style, until you get a uniform pebbly consistency.

Take out 1 1/2 cups of the mixture and put in a smaller bowl. Put bowl in freezer.

Pour the rest of the mixture into the pan and press to form an even layer of crust along the bottom and sides.

Bake 12-15 minutes, until light golden.  Let cool at least 10 minutes before adding filling.

In another bowl, combine eggs, sugar, yogurt, flour, salt, spices, lemon juice, vanilla, and almond extract. Whisk until smooth.  Gently stir in the blackberries with a spatula.

Spread the filling over the crust in the baking pan.

Take the topping mixture from the freezer. Mix some sugar and cinnamon together and fluff  into the topping mixture. Pour the topping over the filling so that it is roughly uniform.

Bake 45-55 minutes, until the top is beginning to brown and the bars are just set.

Let cool completely on a rack.  Chill for a few hours or overnight to firm up before slicing and serving.

Notes

• It would be interesting to try this with lemon, orange, or vanilla Greek yogurt.
• The original recipe called for sour cream as an alternative to yogurt, but these bars are so rich, I wouldn't go there. The yogurt provides a medicinal tang to balance the sweetness.
• These bars may end up gooey toward the center of the pan. This caused my boyfriend to refer to them unflatteringly as "bubbling mush." That is some TASTY mush that anyone but a killjoy would want to eat.

Verdict

3 stars--these will be lapped up by everyone at your picnic, office party, or brunch. However, they're not "alternative" enough for me to get wildly excited about them. Throw in some flax, and we're golden.