Black and Blue Pie

This whole post is about to get super Portland on you. Like Portlandia-esque Portland. This is a pie I made for my tattoo artist as a tip for my last tattoo. I made it with local berries. And local flour (hey Bob's Red Mill). And local butter (Tillamook). Also I'm wearing black and red flannel right now.

This pie is also super good. It looked great the first time, so I made it again. You should use whatever end of season berries you have and make this. Decorate it any way you want. Maybe put a bird on it? I dunno.

Black and Blue Pie:

Makes one 9” pie

½ recipe best pie dough in the universe

Filling-

3 c. blackberries

3 c. blueberries

2/3 c. – ¾ c. sugar (depending on how sweet your berries are)

1 tsp. lemon zest

1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Dash nutmeg

Dash cinnamon

Topping-

2/3 c. all-purpose flour

3 Tb. brown sugar, packed

½ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. salt

Dash allspice

Dash nutmeg

6 Tb. unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Make the pie dough! Roll it out how you do and put it in a 9-inch pie dish. Refrigerate while prepping everything else. If you have extra dough like I did after trimming, use a cookie cutter to make fun shapes with the remainder. Refrigerate alongside pie crust.

Whisk sugar, lemon zest, nutmeg, and cinnamon together. Add berries and toss to coat. Add lemon juice and toss to coat again. Let sit at least 10 minutes.

While your berries are sitting, preheat oven to 375 and make the topping. Whisk together all dry topping ingredients. Add in melted and cooled butter and mix with fingers until blended evenly.

To assemble your pie, remove formed dough from fridge, scoop in berry mixture, and sprinkle topping as evenly as possible.

Bake pie for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the filling is bubbling and your topping has become golden. If it is browning too quickly, cover top with foil. Place a baking sheet on the rack below your pie to catch any bubbly juices.

Let cool on wire rack until you can handle it enough to deliver to your tattoo artist. Or your friends out back. Or your mouth.

I really enjoyed this pie – but it was more like a cobbler because as you might see from the recipe above, I did not add corn starch to the berry mixture. Do that. Add about 2½ tablespoons corn starch to the berry mixture to help gel some of those juicy, juicy berries.

Overall, though, this was a great pie – easy to make, fun to decorate, and a great gift.

You've got a little summer left. Give this pie a try.

And now I'm done with summer pie recipes. On to the fall pies!   

Risotto Rice Pudding with Brown Sugar and Vanilla

Sometimes you just need dessert and you need to not leave the house. Sure, cookies are always a good choice, but sometimes you just gotta do something different. Sometimes you gotta make rice pudding. This is a fabulous recipe, though it does take a little longer to come together than stated. Worth it. Add the caramel like we did. Also so worth it.

Risotto Rice Pudding with Brown Sugar and Vanilla via Joy the Baker:

Serves 4

2 Tb. unsalted butter

1 c. Arborio rice

3½ to 4 c. milk

¼ c. brown sugar

¼ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. ground cinnamon

large pinch allspice

1 vanilla bean, split and scraped (seeds only) or 1 Tb. pure vanilla extract

Blackberries (or any berries) for topping

Caramel sauce for topping

In a medium saucepan, over low heat, scald 4 cups of milk. Bring the milk to just under boiling, turn off the flame and let it rest.

In a large saucepan, over low heat, melt the butter. Add the rice grains and stir to coat. Ladle in just enough hot milk to cover the rice. Stir (with a wooden spoon) over the low flame. The rice will begin to absorb the milk. When the milk is almost fully absorbed, ladle in more hot milk. Stir until absorbed. Continue this process, standing over the stove, stirring milky rice. Taste the rice as you near the end of the milk. You may only need 3½ cups instead of 4. As you add the last bit of milk, also incorporate the sugar, salt, spices, and scraped vanilla beans. Stir well to combine.

Stir over low heat until the milk is gone and the rice is tender, with just a hint of a toothsome bite.

If you want it thicker, continue to cook it for a bit longer. Serve warm or cold, with fresh berries or without. Or frozen berries. Or caramel sauce.

Rice pudding will last, in an airtight container in the refrigerator, for up to 4 days.

Super tasty! Super easy! Do it now!

And the winner is...Blackberry Vanilla Cupcakes

I have a good reason for announcing the cupcake contest and getting votes and making them and then not posting about it for three weeks: grad school. In between baking them and now I had

• a conference to go to and present a poster at
• a project due the same weekend as...
• class
• another project due for a different class
• a research paper

So okay! I also had to feed myself and go running, but I did bake these and they were pretty good and now they are all gone. Blackberry Vanilla won by a few votes, but carrot cake was coming up from behind toward the end. I will try to do something like this again and maybe find a way to make it even more interesting...and delicious. Now - the cupcakes!

These ones were a little more complicated that I had originally anticipated because you have to make the coulis first. That's not a big deal, but if you aren't prepared for that extra time (and a lot of coulis), I think a thinned jam would also work really, really well. The blog has recently changed layout and now doesn't have the story that links to the coulis recipe (kind of annoying, plus I like blogs that have a story to the recipe. That's what makes blogs different from cookbooks. Anyway...), but I'm nice and found it for you here.

Blackberry Vanilla Cupcakes from The Good Mood Food Blog:

Makes 12 cupcakes

For the cupcakes -
1 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
6 Tb. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ c. milk
½ c. blackberry coulis

For the frosting -
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
3 c. powdered sugar, sifted
2 Tb. blackberry coulis

To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 180c (or 355 Fahrenheit if you live in America). Line a cupcake pan with paper liners. In a small mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk and blackberry coulis. Add half of the dry ingredients to the bowl of the mixer and mix on low speed until just combined. Mix in the blackberry coulis/milk mixture. Mix in the remaining dry ingredients on low speed just until incorporated. Do not over-mix.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared paper (or silicone) liners. Bake 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan 10-15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar and blackberry coulis in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until smooth and well blended. Frost cooled cupcakes as desired. This is best done in a cute apron.

Jamie and I added extra coulis to make it more tart, but that didn’t really work. Overall, these were very light cupcakes and really tasted more like frosted muffins. We were both fairly unimpressed with how un-berry like these are. After talking with my mom about it, she suggested adding cherry extract to make it more tart and to bring out the berry flavors. If I ever make these again, that’s what I’ll do. At the very least I’ll keep it in mind for future berry cupcakes. My coworkers were fairly impressed with these and if you have a need for a very light dessert, these are it. Not my favorites, but still a tasty effort in the end.

Blackberry Lime Muffins

Two weekends ago, I went camping with a few of my girlfriends at Mt. Rainier National Park (Renai (in two parts) and Brittany have already posted about it). Car Portland was in charge of breakfast, so I decided to make muffins because it’s berry season and I love muffins. They were delicious and it was an amazing camping trip, made all the better because my fall semester just started and I know I’m going to be bogged down in grad school stuff once again. Incidentally, this will likely mean a slowdown in posts. As always, I’ll try to keep up. In the meantime, make these muffins. They are fantastic.

Blackberry Lime Muffins:

Makes 18 small muffins

1/2 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. oats
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 c. sugar
1 c. homemade applesauce
1/2 c. Greek-style yogurt
1 egg, beaten
Zest and juice of 1 large lime
1 1/2 heaping c. Oregon blackberries

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix together flours, oats, baking powder and soda, salt, and sugar. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together applesauce and yogurt. Add in beaten egg and mix well. Add lime zest and juice. I ended up adding in a bit more because the cinnamon flavor of my applesauce was overpowering the zesty lime flavor profile I was going for.

Slowly mix in dry ingredients, making sure each addition is fully incorporated before adding the next. Fold in blackberries. Add mixture to cupcake liners, filling about 2/3 of the way full, and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes.

These ended up being more dense than I had intended, but were still amazing. I would have used all whole wheat flour, but I made these the morning of the trip and ran out. In the future, I will likely increase the amount of flour a bit, but for the most part, I loved them. They are incredibly moist and the best part is how the blackberries and lime play together. It’s one of my favorite flavor combinations. What I think is great about muffin recipes is how much you can play around with them. In the future, I might take out the lime and sub in blueberries. Because my applesauce is so full of cinnamon, I wouldn’t change anything else or maybe I could add lemon instead. The world is your muffin!

Mixed Berry Cobbler

Updating finally. Thanks for the reminder Steffani. I’ve had this ready to go for a bit now and just forgot to do it. Oh well.

It’s finally feeling like summer in Portland. The sun is out, everyone’s smiling, and the farmer’s market is filled with delicious, delicious berries (I told you I’d be coming back to this!). My beautiful, fantastic friend Renai came to visit two weekends ago and we decided to do a cross-blog extravaganza and focus around the farmer’s market. Renai’s blog involves a ton of cool, look what I’m cooking now recipes, especially some very neat vegan stuff I wouldn’t have ever thought of. It’s because she’s a fantastic lady.



So with berries in mind, we went down to the big Saturday farmer’s market at PSU and eventually picked up a flat of mixed berries, which included blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. We ate a good chunk of this before we even made it back to the house. Sitting in my dining room, looking over some of my fave cookbooks and the internet, we debated ideas back and forth. After rejecting pie for the time factor (sorry pie! We had dinner to make too!), we settled on a cobbler recipe from the Alice Bay Cookbook, which was featured last fall here. Going with the whole local berries, Pacific Northwest thing, we went for it.

And it was so worth it. I love cooking with Renai. She’s a great partner in the kitchen.

Mixed Berry Cobbler modified from Blackberry Cobbler from the Alice Bay Cookbook:

About 8-12 portions, depending on how berry crazy everyone is.

1½ c. sugar
½ c. unbleached white flour
1 tsp. salt
8 c. mixed berries (I’d go for a good mix of sweet and tart. Our blackberries were almost like jam, but the raspberries had a good bit of bite to them. Experiment and see what works for you).
3 Tb. lemon juice (fresh, if you’ve got it)
3 Tb. butter
Biscuit Topping-
2 c. sifted unbleached flour
4 tsp. baking powder
3 Tb. sugar
1 tsp. salt
½ c. butter
2/3 c. milk
1 egg, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.



Mix together sugar, flour, salt, berries, and lemon juice. Pour into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish, and dot with butter. Bake for 15 minutes, until hot and bubbly.

Meanwhile, make biscuit topping. Mix together sifted flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add milk and beaten egg that your friend has kindly already mixed together for you, and stir with a fork until just blended.







While berry mixture is hot and bubbly, spoon biscuit mixture on top in 10 or 12 dollops (or be less specific, like Renai, and just glop it all over the place). Return to oven for 20 minutes, until biscuits are browned. My oven decided this would be about 24 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. Top with ice cream or whipped cream. Or just eat it and enjoy.



This was a pretty fantastic dessert. The only thing I’d change is making the glops of biscuit mixture a little more spread out. But for a first time team-up, I’d say we did a great job. Everyone seemed to enjoy it quite a bit and it was a fantastic way to use a ton of berries.

We also made dinner, but there are no pictures of that. That’s okay because I mostly just chopped veggies for salad and opened up and emptied a can of Coors Light to poach salmon that was taking too long to cook. It was tasty and was perfectly finished off with the cobbler. I can’t wait to collaborate with Renai again.

Berry Galette

So while my Cheese and Sausage Galette was being consumed, this tasty dish was being baked. Unfortunately, time ran short and my husband and I had to take off for a movie (this one, in case you care. It was really good, btw). So it was cooled and stuck into the fridge. This morning it was gently reheated for about 20 minutes and was fantastic! I cannot wait to try different fruit combinations with this because it is so, so good. You have to try it. Do it now!

Berry Galette from Baking with Julia via my mom:

½ recipe galette dough, chilled
1½ c. mixed berries (I used a mix of frozen strawberries and frozen blackberries. You can also use a variety of cut up fruit instead or in addition.)
1 Tb. plus 1 tsp. sugar, separated
1 Tb. honey, optional (the sugar is enough on its own)
1 Tb. cold unsalted butter, cut into slivers and chilled
A cup of chilled water (for brushing the dough)

Follow prep for dough from the Cheese and Sausage Galette.






Spread the berries (or cut up fruit) over the dough, leaving a 2”-3” border. Sprinkle the tablespoon of sugar over the fruit and drizzle the honey if you are using it (really, though, you don’t need it). Scatter the slivers of butter on top of the fruit. Fold the uncovered border of dough up over the filling, allowing the dough to please as your lift (just like with the cheese and sausage one, but make the border thicker as fruit is runnier than cheese. Dip a pastry brush in the chilled water and give the edge of the crust a light coating and then sprinkle the fruit with the remaining teaspoon of sugar. Or put it on the fruit if you feel like it.

Bake just like the cheese and sausage galette. This is also done at about 35 minutes. Place baking sheet on cooling rack and let cool for about 20 minutes.



Serve warm or at room temperature.

It’s sweet and warm and yummy. And it looks so pretty too. I forgot to take a picture of the final product and my awesome pleating (way better than the savory one was as I followed all the steps correctly this time around), but you can see how nice the edge is on the single piece. It’s all gone now, but I will be making more soon!