Saturday, July 7, 2018

Happy 4th of July!

I know I'm a little late, but I think it's safe to assume that plenty of you are still celebrating the long weekend that this holiday has turned into.This year I decided to switch it up from the traditional US flag cheesecake and celebrate with a strawberry/blueberry pie. I found a ton a variations on this recipe, and I'm sure you have your own favorite. Plus, I'm not great at doing things like writing down what I put into a dish, or using exact measurements, so here are some loose tips for festive and unique berry pies of all kinds:


  1. Use almond flour, but then cut back a little on the butter and water. Almost flour is great. It's tasty, it's better for you than white flour, and it tends to stick together in mixtures better than whole wheat. Most of baking is somewhere around 1/2 nut flour and 1/2 unbleached white. Just be aware that the oils in the nuts will make your dough stickier, so reduce your added fats a bit to compensate.
  2. Keep it simple. You don't need gelatin. The only ingredients in the filling of this pie were the berries, a little sugar, and starch. (Tapioca and potato are both great choices.) It did come out a little runny, so I would probably add a bit more starch and maybe even a little flour in future experiments.
  3. Cookie cutters are your friends. I don't know why I had never thought to use cookie cutters for pie crust before, but now that that mental door has been opened, the possibilities are endless.
  4. Foil makes a great divider. The line between types of berries was made by folding a double layer of tin foil, sticking it gently into the raw bottom crust, filling the berries in, and then taking it out before adding the top crust.
These basics can be used to create any kind of shape or flavor combination. What kinds of creative pie recipes have you tried?

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