My kitchen had too many apples, aging blackberries, and excess rye flour. Careful, berry juice stains.

crust

• cut into small cubes 225g butter
• freeze or defrost slightly if frozen
• fill measuring cup with ~1c water, add ice to chill
• whisk together dry ingredients: 210g AP flour, 90g rye flour, 15g sugar, 5g salt
• use hands to blend butter & flours. pinch butter chunks into pea-sized flour-covered bits
• blend dry with wet. Use ¼-½c water from the chilled cup. you may want to add 2t ACV, though I forgot.
• refrigerate > 2h

filling

• peel 1.5-2# apples; 6-8 depending on size
• peel doesn’t have to be complete; ~75% of the exposed skin is fine
• cut into ½-1” cube-ish chunks
• if you have time, prep the bottom crust and chill. if not, wait to prep crust until filling is complete
• rinse 6oz blackberries or other berry
• blackberries have a chewy stem so cut in half
• in saucepan, heat over low 3T cornstarch, 3T citrus juice, 5-10g salt, 2 spoonfuls honey, ¼c sugar
• heat/sweat until apples are slightly softened. The surface should be smooth but the apples should still be hard when poked. The berries are falling apart. The fruit is surrounded by a uniform gravy; the cornstarch and sugar are incorporated throughout. This takes ten minutes or less.
• using cake flour as helper, roll out crust, prepare, fill, cover with second crust
• place a cookie sheet underneath pie in oven to catch drippings
• bake 400° for 45-50min to desired doneness. Pictured pie was 50 min, I think it could be a pinch less.

verdict

Pie was a little better than okay. The filling is less sweet than I’m accustomed to, but I often complain about things being overly sweet, so I think I’m not used to actually tasting the fruit. I only had lime juice but I would prefer lemon or orange. Next time I may use a higher ratio of berries. I have previously done a 100% AP crust so this was a test: it succeeded. Storage is a bit of a concern; the crust is soft by the next day. This is perhaps unavoidable. Next time if I’m not so lazy I’ll do more to the top of the pie. This one was sprinkled with granulated sugar prior to baking; it was okay but definitely phoned in.

final grade

B