Raspberry Pi

No, not that one, you nerds.

Dad has a bunch of raspberry bushes in his yard.  They arose, unbidden but welcome, from an unknown source (probably bird poo) several years ago, and have been spreading ever since.  We like raspberries, so he has seen no reason to stop their profligation, but they've reached a point where we might need to at least cut some rows between them so we can get at all of their delicious fruit.  After GOBA, I knew I had some time off from my usual butlering duties in Virginia, so I stayed with Dad to help with some chores and repairs, but when I saw all his ripe black raspberries, I knew that something had to be done.  Preferably something round, encased in pastry.

Yes, this will do nicely, thank you!

Thanks to Sam, I now know that I can post any recipe I want here; it's my commentary that's copyrighted.  So here's the recipe I used, and in the interests of fairness, here's the source (caution: annoying popup ads).

Crust:
2 C flour
1 T sugar
1/2 t salt
3/4 C shortening
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 T cold water
1T white vinegar

Filling:
1 1/3 C sugar
2 T quick-cooking tapioca
2 T cornstarch
5 C fresh or frozen-and-thawed raspberries
1 T butter

• Combine flour, sugar, and salt.  Cut in shortening until texture resembles coarse crumbs (see below).  If you have a pastry blender, this is when you use it.  If you do not have a pastry blender, and plan to make five or more pies in your lifetime, this is a good time to go boy a pastry blender.  Get a strong one.  Dad's is formed from sheet metal.  Ours has wires.  I like Dad's better, but they both work fine.



"Coarse crumb" texture.  Thumb shown for scale.  Your thumb may vary.

• Combine egg, water, and vinegar.  Add to pastry mixture.  You may have to work it with your hands a little in the bowl until you get a cohesive ball.  The original recipe advises separating the dough now and wrapping both pieces in plastic wrap, but I just put a sealing lid on the mixing bowl and stuck it in the fridge.  The fridge is the more important part here.  Cooling the dough for about 30 minutes will make it easier to handle later.
• See the filling ingredients?  Mix everything but the butter in a big bowl and let it sit for about fifteen minutes.  The timing works out well on this, because the dough will be ready at about the same time as your filling.

mmm, filling.  It's ok to lick the spoon, I promise.

• Roll out the dough using your favorite method.  I still can't get cohesive dough on a floured surface (although this is a new pastry recipe for me, so maybe I could have), so I tend to use two sheets of plastic wrap on a very slightly damp counter (to help the plastic wrap stick to it).  I know it's wasteful, but I was pressed for time that morning, so I wasn't up for experimentation.  Use the larger dough ball first and line a 9" pie pan with it.  Dump in the filling.  Cut the butter into little pieces and sprinkle them across the top of the berries.  Roll out the rest of the dough and seal your pie.  Trim the edges if necessary.  I had some dough left over, so I tried to make little decorative pieces with them.  They didn't look very good, but as I tend to aim for taste over appearance, that didn't bother me much.  Cut some vents in your top crust, brush with a little milk, and sprinkle with some sugar (a tablespoon or less each.  It doesn't take much.)
• Bake at 350F 50-55 minutes, until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly.

see the bubbly filling?

• Let cool (it will hold together better when you serve it--you can reheat slices if you like) and eat with vanilla ice cream and friends.  Interpret that however you like.

As frequent readers here will know, I've reached a point where I often consider recipes to be more like guidelines than hard-and-fast rules, and I'm prone to substitution experiments.  They will also know that when you cook without a safety net, you're bound to make a few small mistakes.  These are usually edible (I still haven't posted about my colossal failure with Hudson Bay Bread--my annoyance is too great), so it's ok, but I thought I'd share what I did differently here, because that's the whole point.

When you cook in someone else's kitchen, you use what they have.  Dad had some pearl tapioca, and I thought it would be pointless to go buy some quick-cooking tapioca when I only needed two tablespoons.  No worries!  The recipe called for 1 1/3 C sugar (plus one tablespoon for topping), and it turned out that Dad had exactly 1 C of sugar left.  I used brown sugar for the remaining 1/3 C.  When I make apple pie, I use brown sugar almost exclusively these days, and in the filling, I didn't see how it would matter. It didn't sprinkle very well for the topping, but that's ok, too.  I also substituted apple cider vinegar for white vinegar. I can't think of any reason that this would matter.

The sugar substitution caused no trouble at all.  The pearl tapioca might have been a very small mistake.  If you look closely at the mixed filling (pre-baking), you can see the little white spheres in there.

you can taste the filling if you lick your screen hard enough.

The downside is, I think quick-cooking tapioca would have gelled better and given me a more cohesive result, instead of Lake Berry Juice, seen below.

It's a pie AND a dessert topping!

The good news is, it was still very tasty, and since you probably aren't one of the three people who got to eat this pie, there's no way you can prove me wrong.  HA!!