A Month of Pie: Blackberry Mango Pie

I am dedicating this pie to my little niece Eleni. Her mom, my sister in law, told me that her kids have loved seeing all the different pies on my blog this month. I asked her if her kids had any recommendations for pie flavors. Jacob got his pumpkin pie a couple posts back. Lyd, I have a variation of cheesecake for you coming next week. And Eleni, here is the mango pie you requested (she has been checking religiously to see if there was a mango pie on my blog yet). True, I added blackberries, but they make such a tasty pair. It is predominantly black berry in flavor, with little gems of fragrant mango throughout the pie. Eleni, can you see the mangoes peeking through the cracks? If you can’t use fresh berries, just use frozen. It’s cheaper, they are out of season, and they are still tasty. I also used frozen, precut mangos, but I think they would be yummier fresh. My favorite frozen mangoes are from Trader Joe’s.

I actually had a few problems when making this pie, to all of which I found a solution. Remember what I always say: This blog is so that you can learn from my mistakes as I experiment. So, let me just share some common problems that can occur when making berry pies and how to avoid them.

Bottom Crust is soggy: This can be fixed by baking the pie directly on the bottom rack in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes. Once the filling starts to bubble up, move it up to the normal center rack and place it on top of a rimmed cookie sheet to prevent bubbly juice dripping in your oven.

Filling is too runny: There are a couple different reasons why this could happen. Here is how to avoid it:

• Make sure you have enough thickener in your berry pie. I used corn starch, but you could use tapioca powder or flour. If you don’t enough of one of these thickeners, your pie will never hold together.
• Make sure you give the pie a chance to reach a high temperature for long enough. The juices wont thicken if they aren’t cooked long enough. If the juices still look thin and watery, cook it longer. Eventually they will start to look thick and syrupy when they bubble out the little cracks in the top crust. I recommend starting the pie at 400 F. for the first 30 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 350 for the rest of the time. If you are cooking it from frozen, or if the fruit inside is frozen, you will need to increase the cooking time by 20 or 30 minutes.
• Make sure you give the pie a chance to settle. If you cut into a fresh-from-the oven black berry pie, it will be kind of runny. If you can’t wait to eat it, then eat it, but just know that it will still be slightly runny. If you let it settle for 3 to 4 hours, or even over night in the fridge, it will firm up nicely. If you want a hot pie, then let it rest over night and warm it up again in the oven. It wont take long and it will hold together better.

Filling is too thick: If you over cooked it or used too much thickener, you may have a pie that is too thick.

Top Crust is Raw: If your top crust isn’t cooked all the way through, but the rest of the pie is done, your top crust is probably too thick.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 12 oz. bag frozen black berries (or fresh)
• 12 oz. bag frozen mangoes (or 2 fresh mangoes, diced)
• 1 C. sugar
• 3 heaping TBSP corn starch
• 2 TBSP. fresh lemon juice
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• dash of salt
• 1 TBSP butter
• 1 double pie crust (My recipe for perfect pie crust)

Directions

1. Place the black berries and mangoes in a large bowl. Let them thaw and drain out some of the excess juice. Add the sugar, corn starch, lemon juice, zest, vanilla, and salt to the fruit and mix until its even coated. Set aside while you ready the crust.

2. Preheat oven to 400 F. Place the rolled crust in the pie pan and poke holes at the base with a fork. Add the fruit mixture. Dot with the butter. Place top dough on top of the fruit and crimp edges. Cut slits in the top for air to escape.

A note about making the top cover out of pie stamp cut outs: It looks cool, but it was a little bit tricky because I had to work the dough so much by rolling it out over and over and cutting shapes, so it wasn’t as flaky as I would have liked on top.The cut outs were also pretty thick and slightly stacked on top of each other and had a hard time cooking all the way through. If you choose to use this method for covering the pie, I would recommend placing all the cutouts on a baking sheet and baking them on their own for about 10 minutes before arranging them on the pie.

3. Place pie pan directly on the bottom rack and bake until the juice starts to bubble, about 30 minutes. Move the pie pan to a tin foil lined rimmed baking sheet and place on the middle rack. Reduce heat to 350 for another 30 minutes. If your fruit is frozen, your pie may need 20-30 minutes more. But if the juice is thick and syrupy and the crust looks cooked through, it is probably done. See my post about cooking pies from frozen. Cover the pie with tin foil once the top and edges look brown, but let it keep cooking.

4. Let it rest for 3 to 4 hours before eating. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Recipe by Edible Experiments