Night of two Pies, part 2: Honey-Sweetened Berry Pie

The second pie of the evening: a honey-sweetened berry pie. Quite good, sweet and tart and flavorful.

I used the second half of the dough from Four and Twenty Blackbirds' recipe, as mentioned in the previous post. (Technically this dough had a bit of sugar in it, so this pie was not sugarless. But it's close, and with a slight modification to the dough recipe, could easily be). For berries, I bought a bag of  "mixed Northwest berries" (marionberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries I think) from my local Zupan's, then defrosted them over a colander. I wound up using the entire large bag, though I think it was more volume than the recipe called for.

The filling recipe itself came from Ken Haedrich's book Pie, and is entitled "Marionberry Pie". As is typical for me, I missed a step completely and made rambunctious modifications... but the pie still came out very tasty.

Here it is:

5 cups frozen berries
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup sugar (I used 1 cup honey)
1/4 cup cornstarch 

Prebake & prep a pie crust.  

Place half the frozen berries (I thawed and drained mine first) and the lemon juice in a medium-size saucepan. Use a pastry blender or potato masher to gently mash. Heat gently over low heat.  

Meanwhile, mix the sugar (honey) and cornstarch together in a small bowl. (This is obviously difficult with honey, and I'm not sure what the right way to do this is- my pie's only drawback were occasional starchy-tasting spots, and I think it's because the cornstarch didn't blend too well. Open to suggestions about this). 

When the berries have put off a fair amount of juice, stir in the cornstarch mixture. Increase heat slightly and bring to a boil, stirring often. Boil for 1 minute, stirring nonstop; remove from heat and scrape into a shallow bowl. 

Let cool, then refrigerate about 1 hour. (I totally did not do this and wish I had- I think the filling would have been much firmer). 

Gently fold the remaining berries into the chilled fruit. Scrape the filling into the cooled pie shell and smooth the top with a spoon. Cover with loosely tented aluminum foil and refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.

Here's the result of a sloppy roll-out job: 

After lots of trimming and reshaping, I crimped the edges:

And then it looked pretty good:

Here are my berries, defrosting:

And, starting to cook:

Halfway through pre-baking:

Fully pre-baked!

The filling, almost done, with cornstarch and whole berries mixed in (note that I shoulda refrigerated these first instead):

The completed pie, cooling: