22/7, 3.141592..., pi, ... , PIE!!
Call it what you want, it's delicious.
Actually, to be honest, I've never been much of a pie person. Ice box, pudding pies? Well, maybe those. But nothing with fruit in it!
This is probably due to the fact that when growing up, I don't think my mom ever once made a home-made fruit pie. Thus, the only pies on which my opinions were based were those from boxes in the freezer.
Ah, the store-bought pie: cardboard-crust; gel-like, corn-syrup filling; unnaturally slimy-yet-crunchy fruit chunks. No, thank you.
There was, however, one freezer-fruit-pie that I could slightly bear, years ago. It was a Sara Lee "Fruits of the Forest" pie, and- like I said- it was bearable.
But then I went to Montana, this year and last year, and my grandparents made their own "Fruits of the Forest" pie. The berries may have been from the frozen section of Walmart, but the crust was purely from scratch. But of course full of butter and wheat and sugar and I couldn't eat any of it.
Thus, I created my own masterpiece upon return to the East coast. And, I must say, this is possibly
my favorite thing I've ever made, and, I am now a pie convert.
So, I present:
FRUTAS DEL BOSQUE: THE BERRY PIE
(when I was in Granada there was a Frutas del Bosque ice cream flavor at
heladeria tiggliani, and thus anything "Fruits of the Forest" reminds me of that.)
THE RECIPE:
Crust:
1.5c garbanzo bean flour
1.5c millet flour
1.5 tsp potato starch
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 c extra light olive oil (or coconut)
Filling:
1 bag frozen mixed berries (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry combo)
1 tbs tapioca flour
15 drops stevia
1 tsp lemon juice
Prepare crust:
Combine dry ingredients, then slowly add oil, cutting it into the dough. Consistency should be stiffer than cookie dough. Place in fridge to chill.
Prepare filling:
Dump thawed berry mixture into a bowl. Use a fork and scissors to cut up large chunks (like big strawberries).Add tapioca flour and lemon juice, mixing thoroughly. Then sweeten with liquid stevia to taste. (Tapioca flour will thicken when heat-activated, so don't worry that filling will be runny until then)
Prepare pie!:
Remove about half of the crust dough, and roll out to 1/4 inch thick between two sheets of waxed paper.
Dough will slightly stick to paper, so use it to flip rolled dough into a pie tin.
Next, pour filling mixture into the crust.
Roll out the rest of the crust to make the top of the pie. Since this GF crust brakes rather easily, I don't recommend a solid top, unless you are feeling particularly brave, and have a whole lot of patience. Instead, I opted for the lattice.
Slice dough into 1-inch wide strips.
I insisted on a completely alternating under-over weave- which traditionally requires folding back the "over" strips. Seeing as this dough doesn't exactly "fold", I ended up doing a lot of patching.
This turned out fine, but it might be easier to be less rigorous with your weave, and instead just start laying a strip at one corner. Place the next strip to form the rest of the corner, 90 degrees to the first one. Continue working across the pie, laying each strip at 90 degrees to the last one. No folding necessary, but you also don't get the genuine weave.
Place pie on a cookie sheet lined with tinfoil, so that any overflowed filling doesn't make a mess.
Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 325 degrees, and bake until done- about 30 minutes.
Remove from oven and let cool until slicing.
Enjoy the flaky crust, fresh berry filling- just the right level of firmness!
Deeeeeelicious.
Seriously, this pie is delicious. I bought Rice Dream to put on it, but didn't even use it, because it was too good on its own. I gobbled it up within a week!
