We get absurdly excited each year in late summer because blackberries grow in insane amounts around here. The first year we went picking, I broke a toe along the way, but braved the pain in order to get my precious berries. The following weekend, we kept to ourselves waiting for news about Shawn's ailing dad. In an effort to keep our moods positive, we decided to turn the 4+ cups of blackberries into a delicious pie. That would surely bring a smile to our faces.
We cleaned the berries, purchased the ingredients, and drooled as we watched our very first blackberry pie burbling in the oven. When the timer buzzed, I took the pie out and laughed as I watched it spin in its glass dish. Oops! I guess I must have overgreased the dish. When the spinning stopped, I held the dish up to see if the bottom had browned. When I did this, the entire pie flew right out of the dish and smashed all over the floor and interior of our oven. The dish stayed put right in my hands. In a desperate move, Shawn began to scrape remaining bits of pie off of the oven so we could have a taste that night. This plan worked to some degree, but we were pretty much left pie-less. All that plus the broken toe left me a little disenchanted.
The next week, we ran across a huge, largely unpicked batch of berries in a local park. We grabbed a bag out of the car and went nuts—scraping our arms, snagging our shirts—desperate to make and eat a blackberry pie. We headed straight to the grocery and baked one helluva pie that evening. I very carefully took it out of the oven this time, and my... was it ever yummy.
We have since perfected blackberry pie (see our favorite recipe). The past couple of years, we've branched out to other blackberry recipes, as well. Here are two delicious and easy options we mastered recently:
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