Tuesday 12 February 2013

Eating Humble Berry Pie

I looked up 'eating humble pie' on the Internet after my friend mentioned it. I didn't know what that expression meant but now that I do, it seems fitting for this week's post. Here I am, excited to serve my first berry pie to my friends and it looked so promising.
Baked at 425°F for 25 minutes then 375°F for 10 minutes
Golden crust, sweet buttery smell with sprinkled sugar on top. It all seemed perfect. I cut the pie and when I picked up a slice, gushes of berries and juice began to flood the tray as the pie slowly deflated along with my excitement. It was the runniest pie I've ever made.
I couldn't even see the bottom crust. The crust was crispy as usual as I did not change the recipe. I couldn't even tell if it was flaky with all that juice. The filling was delicious as it had enough sweetness with a little bit of tart and spice. Below are the ingredients for this filling:
- 4 cups of blueberries (1 for jam)
- 1 cup of raspberries
- 3 tablespoons of tapioca starch
- half a cup of sugar
- half a teaspoon of cinnamon
- half a teaspoon of nutmeg

I first made blueberry jam by mashing the blueberries with a little bit of water in a low-heated pot. A tablespoon of tapioca starch was added to thicken the jam. The jam was added to the rest of the ingredients and were mixed by hand. Raspberries soften so fast.
Looking back, the jam was unnecessary considering how runny the pie was. I'm probably not gonna use raspberries again after next week because they easily turn into liquid and they're expensive. However, the pie may lose its tartness.

I wasn't expecting the filling to go runny this quickly and I only baked the pie for 35 minutes instead of 45 minutes for an apple pie.

For my next pie, I will use the same ingredients but I won't prepare the blueberry jam. I will also blind bake the pie with a lattice top. Apparently, it's not doable but I'll see it for myself. Blind baking will harden the bottom crust and the lattice top will allow more heat to come out. The lattice top also takes less time to cook since the surface area is smaller, so the pie should not take too long to bake. With less time in the oven, the filling shouldn't be runny as well.
Well, I thought I knew what I was doing when in fact, I was eating a humble pie in front of my friends. But it was delicious!

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