Julie the Pie Maker 7/10/11

As Holly mentioned, 7 of us went berry picking last weekend and each ended up with somewhere between 3 and 4 pounds of olallieberries. Similar to blackberries, olallieberries are a cross between two other types of berries that I also had never heard of before but are also in the same blackberry-type family. They're longer than blackberries and a little less sweet and more tart. With so many berries ripening at the same time, however, Julie and I decided to put it all into a pie.

Before this summer, I hadn't made a pie on my own ever before. I had certainly helped and watched my mom make a few apple pies when I was growing up, but since I had never had a pie pan over the past 4 years, I never had a chance to figure it out. Given how infrequently my family made pies, I didn't think I was missing much. I was better-educated in making cookies and stir-frys instead.

Julie, however, apparently participated in much more pie making when she was growing up. When we made a blueberry cream pie a few weeks ago, she expertly rolled out the crust to the right size without any tearing, a feat that she replicated again for this pie. And since her parents had grown blackberries in their garden, this pie was right up her alley. She asked her mom for the recipe for both the crust and filling, neither of which we had any difficulty with. Then came assembling.

One nifty trick I had learned from my mom was to roll out the pastry on a piece of wax paper (and in my family, wax paper doesn't come from a roll; it comes from an opened breakfast cereal bag), place the pan over the dough, then just flip it over. With that, the bottom crust is done, along with all of my ability in pie assembling. An unfortunate truth about pies in my family is the top crust. It often turns out fine, but it does end up puffed up far higher than filling, which settles. Julie the pie maker, however, had just the solution: the lattice.

I'm sure you've seen it, and if you haven't, there's a picture below. Instead of the solid crust, there are strips of pastry woven together, forming a loose mat, and frankly, it looks hard. Julie had mentioned before we started that we were planning on doing this, and to me, that sounded like a mess waiting to happen. She seemed confident, though, and I was more than happy to let her lead.

First, she rolled out the top crust into a circle, like the bottom crust. Then, using a sharp knife, she cut strips of the dough all the way across. Starting from the middle, we took the longest strip, laid it across the middle of the pie, then did it again in the other direction. Whenever 2 strips crossed, we just lifted the strips as needed to weave them together. With the leftover strips, we reinforced the outside crust, which was then protected with a tin foil shield to avoid burning it. After a little milk brushed for browning and sugar sprinkled on top, into the oven it went. About 40 minutes later, we had this:

Just about every step of assembly went exactly as planned, and the pie came out baked pretty much perfectly. The lattice held together, and the shield kept away all of the burnt spots.

After we let it cool a bit, we each cut ourselves a slice, pairing it with some vanilla ice cream. Were we more patient, you might not see the liquid run into the gap in the picture in the upper left, but it was worth it. The ice cream and olallieberry pie blended together very nicely: tart olallieberries against sweet vanilla, warm filling against the frozen treat, and flaky crust against the smooth cream.

Using olallieberries worked quite well, I think, as the sugar added to pies means that the berries themselves don't need to be that sweet. At the risk of lowering the pies of my past, this was probably the best pie I had ever had homemade. Years of practice and experience really pay off, especially when it was someone else's.