Have any of you watched the TV show called Pushing Daisies? Sadly it was cancelled in 2009 and only last two seasons. My sister and I fell in love with the show pretty much right when it was getting cancelled and the last episodes were being aired. It was such a fabulous show filled with quick and hilarious dilagoue, a quirky and adorable plot, mixing solving murder cases with pie baking. Pretty much it was amazing and I highly recommend that you look it up if you haven’t seen it already. 

Anyways, I introduced this show to my boyfriend not too long ago and he quickly got hooked (although he thinks it is sick that the main couple can never touch—that isn’t a spoiler I swear, it happens in the first episode!)  Because he liked it so much, we’ve been slowly working our way through the episodes.  After watching one of the episodes last week, I started to brainstorm what to bake for that coming weekend. My boyfriend had unselfishly offered to be the unofficial taste tester when he learned I liked to bake so much, solely to help me have an honest opinion of the results and he did not make this offer to benefit him at all. Yeah, sure. But because he had become my guneia pig, I went ahead and asked him if he had any ideas on what I should bake that weekend. He just looks at me and says, ‘I’m craving pie…’ After all of our time spent watching Pushing Daisies, each episode filled with a variety of different pies, he wound up wanting a pie. And so I decided to try and bake a pie.  

Now I would like to mention that I had attempted at baking a pie once before. It was a lemon shaker pie and it had turned out…okay. I don’t lie when my family, friends, and boyfriend rave about the recipes I share, but they were being generous when they tried the lemon shaker pie. The pie called for the use of a tart pan and because the filling was so liquidy, the pie leaked everywhere! Also, a characteristic with a lemon shaker pie (or so I believe since it was my first time making the pie) is that you use the entire lemon, including the rind, and soak it in sugar for several hours to make it softer. Sadly, the rind didn’t get as soft as I would’ve liked. One positive result was the crust. The crust was not flaky as described by the author of the recipe, but it held together well and didn’t break on me which I feel is a constant problem and what makes pie crusts so tricky. And if we really would like to look at the silver lining, I learned what I wanted to keep and change for the next time I made a pie so I could hopefully make it better the second time around. Now was my second chance and I was more than ready to give it a shot.

For my second try, I decided to keep the pie crust recipe I had used before since it had turned out pretty well before. However instead of trying a different lemon filling recipe, I wanted to try a peach and blackberry filling. For one thing, those two fruits are my favorite combo. Secondly, those two fruits have been in season for awhile now and I wanted to use them while they still were ripe so I wouldn’t have to use frozen fruit. I bet frozen fruit would work just as well, but it is summer time! Farmers Markets are all about with fresh, ripe and local produce and it would almost be criminal to use frozen fruit instead. So my boyfriend and I went to one of the many Farmers Markets around the D.C. area on Saturday and we picked out numerous peaches, blackberries, and some other fruits, veggies, and baked goods to snack on or keep for later.

Of course my boyfriend immediately finds the pastry stand.

If the fruit that you chose for the pie isn’t very ripe, here are two helpful hints:
1) Peaches actually ripen well in a closed brown paper bag. I’m not sure why, but my boyfriend’s mother told me this and it worked so I won’t really question it.
2) Another way to help ripen fruit is to place an apple or banana with the fruit. Both of these secrete a large amount of ethylene that makes neighboring fruit ripen more quickly. 

The Reliable and Delicious Crust Recipe (the original came from Tartine):

• 3 c. and 2 tbl. of whole wheat flour
• 1 c. + 5 tbl. of unsalted, cold butter
• 2/3 c. of water
• 1 tsp. of salt

Making the Crust (top and bottom):

1. In a small bowl, combine the water and salt until well-mixed. Place in the freezer while you prepare the rest.
2. Put the flour in a large bowl. Cut the butter into 1” cubes, and add this to the flour. With two knives cross cut the butter into the flour until there are only small pieces of butter, around the size of peas. You can try to use a mixer, but I don’t have a stand alone, and my handheld electric mixer couldn’t handle it.
3. Add in the cold water-salt mixture, and stir it together until it becomes relatively combined. If you think it is a little too dry, don’t add additional water just yet. Wait until the next step.
4. Divide the dough into two balls. On a lightly floured work surface, kneed the dough together. This should help incorporate the butter well into the dough, and the warmth of your hands will melt the butter and make the dough not as dry. If it is still too dry, then go ahead and add a little bit of water, but no more than a teaspoon at a time. Once you are done kneeding the dough (doesn’t need to take more than a minute or two), shape into a disc about 1” thick. Repeat this process with the second ball as well.
5. Wrap both discs up with plastic and place in the refrigerator. You may refrigerate the dough for 2 to 24 hours.
6. When you are ready to roll out the dough, take out of the frigde and let it come to room temperature. This will take about 1 to 2 hours, depending on how long you left it in the fridge.
7. Roll out both discs of dough on a lightly floured work suface, and roll out until they are flat, level, and about 2” larger around then the pie dish you are using.
8. Gently place one dough into the pie dish, making sure to press down into the sides so that the dough is touching all over the pie pan.  

The Oh-So-Yummy Filling:

• Roughly 4 to 5 medium-sized peaches, thinly sliced*
• 1 1/2 cartons of blackberries
• 3 tbl. of corn starch*
• 1/4 c. + 1 tbl. of brown sugar
• 1/4 c. of honey
• 1 egg

* I am sorry that I am not more specific on how much fruit is needed to fill the pie. It depends on how large the pie is and how full you would like the pie. You certainly want it full enough, but you want to be careful not to make the filling overflow. Also, the amount of corn starch can vary depending on how ripe your fruit is and how much liquid they may have. If your fruit is very ripe and is similar to that of blackberries (such as blueberries, raspberries, etc.) you will want to consider using 3 tbl., which is what I used when I baked this pie. However, if your fruit is not as ripe or liquidy, then you can use 2 tbl. Now to Finish that Pie…

1. In a large bowl, gently stir together the peaches, blackberries, corn starch, 1/4 c. of the brown sugar, and honey until the fruit is well coated. You may want to do this with your hands if the fruit is very ripe.
2. Place the filling into the pie pan, distributing it relatively evenly. Set aside.
3. Returning to the second half of the pie dough, cut the dough into roughly 1” strips. It would be best to have the dough atop a cutting board for this. Lay each strip atop the pie, so it forms a lattice (criss-cross) design. Gently cut or remove any extra dough that hangs at least 1” off the sides. You want to leave some extra so you can pinch the two pie crusts together, but not too much.
4. Pinch the two pie crusts together. I wish I could describe this well after having done it twice, but even after my mom explained it to me I still don’t quite understand it.  I believe that you need to take the pointer and middle finger of your one hand to push up on the bottom of the crust and the pointer finger of your other hand to push down. What matters is that the two crusts are sealed together.
5. In a small bowl, beat the egg and the remaining 2 tbl. of brown sugar together with a fork until well-combined. Using a brush (or fingers if you need to improvise), spread this on the top of the crust.
6. Before placing the pie in the oven, I highly recommend placing it ontop of a cookie sheet with some parchment paper. You do not want to risk the pie bubbling over and onto your oven. That is just one mess you don’t want to have to deal with later.
7. Place the pie into the oven for 30 to 45 min. When it is done, let it cool for about 20 min. before serving (and I highly recommend serving it with some vanilla ice-cream—delish!)

And here is the result: a peach-blackerry lattice pie!!!

I usually like to include more photos of the process, but I took those with my fish eye camera and sadly those didn’t develop. Hopefully next time I’ll have more pictures to share. In the mean time, hope you all enjoy the pie!