Last summer I had a bumper crop of blackberries and mulberries. My blackberries are usually quite tart, but last year they were sweet and delicious for some reason. I had so may I made a pie. Before cooking the pie I tasted the filling and it was the best pie filling I ever tasted. I thought “this pie will be glorious…” Then after baking it, it was anything but. There was no blackberry flavor anymore at all. It tasted like slightly sweet cardboard. A few weeks later I tried again, but used mulberries this time. Same results except the pie lacked even that trace sweetness the blackberry one had. It was a huge waste of excellent berries.
Anyone else run into this issue? I dont think its my pie making abilities because I also made a blueberry pie and that one was pretty good.
Some fruit cooks well, and some don’t. There are baking fruits and fresh eating fruits. Carmine jewell cherries make a delicious pie. Most blackberries don’t make good pie , they are meant to be eaten fresh. Your story is not unique, how many professional chefs risk their reputation on blackberry pie? Have you ever bought one pie? Old fashioned black berries make a great pie. Modern blackberries are meant for fresh eating only.
One of my favorite pies is apple blackberry pies but you leave the blackberries whole and place them on top of the apple filling and it holds up pretty well! But I ran into this with a mulberry pie too. I made one and never wasted the berries in a pie again cause like you said “slightly flavored cardboard” haha
Lemon Juice.
The addition of sugar along with the sugars already present…to me needs addition of acid to balance it out and bring back the ‘flavor’ lost.
I am a snob though and like all of my jams, jellies, and cobblers etc to have a full profile of flavor… so lemon juice goes in everything of mine.
Lemon Juice goes in my fried apples and apple pies also…
If ur not into lemon juice then you can buy Citric Acid instead. Mrs. Wages etc is pretty common.
Im not into pectin myself so making my berry jams, strawbs, bluebs, mulbs and blackberries and rasps… i omit pectin and add more lemon juice and cook longer…
Pie filling/Cobblers is not much more than really good jam… especially in Amish Fried Pies etc.
YMMV though.
Use wild blackberries for pies is my recommendation. They have the level of acid needed for baking.
For that reason the wife cans a lot of seed strained wild Blackberry Jam. Then uses it as pie filling with cream cheese chunks and sweet whole blackberries.
They are eaten quickly! The tart filling and sweet berries with the cheese work very well together.
Take heart i have a remaining ace in my sleave to use your berries. Remember i said type of fruit matters in cooked pies and yours are the wrong fruit? Yours are the right fruit for non cooked pies. They do have some cooking involved but not like your thinking.
@krismoriah is right lemon or lime compliment berries.
https://www.oprah.com/food/blackberry-lemon-icebox-pie-recipe
As mentioned, you need to add an acid like lemon juice. The other needed ingredient is to add salt to the filling. They are typically the two items that brighten up a pie.
Sour fruit make good pie. Sweet fruit make insipid pie.
i just finished a nelson blackberry / tiben black currant cobbler. 1st. time trying it. the currant gave it a awesome tang. it was damned good. i also add lemon and a dash of salt.
This may be the case with the blackberries. I had one that was good once decades ago, and never ever again.
I did neglect to add lemon to the blackberry pie, mainly because I thought the filling was so good before I baked it. I did have it in the mulberry pie though…
If I get a lot of berries this year I may try this. Also more things like frozen yoghurt.
I make jam from (simmered 8 minutes) illini blackberries and it is delicious.
They are not wild… but taste very similar to wild… and a 20+ year old variety.
The type of jam I make only requires the fruit to be simmered 8 minutes.
Low sugar chia jam… the recipe is in the (fruit in your kitchen) category.
TNHunter
The aromatic compounds in berries are pretty delicate and can be pretty much destroyed with high temperatures. These compounds can start to degrade within a few hours of picking.
The seeds, stems and pith can also dissolve some bitter compounds that make it taste worse. Acids can help preserve aome of the flavor/texture becuase they modify the ph and it changes the way they interact with heat. For the same reasons, adding acids to something like an apple pie can help make it more crisp and preserve the flavors better. Lemon is standard, but citric acid works well if you measure it right. This is generally why acidic fruits make better, more flavorful pies.
Here is a good explanation with vegetables
You could also just do no-bake pies. I think berry crisps tend to come out better than pies since they don’t cook as long. Mixing different berries is generally better, but that is probably a PH equation too. Adding some cornstarch keeps the filling from getting watery too.
All of my baked pies and crisps made with home-grown blackberries over the past 30 years have been delicious. I cannot find any mention of baking time or temperature in the posts above. Two-crust pie or one-crust?
The sort of loose juicy form of consistency? The thickness bathing in the juice. That is what the wife makes. Super on biscuits!
@dannytoro1 … in the low sugar chia jam I make… chia seeds are added to thicken the mix. It works well… it is jammy… not really runny.
In a pint of jam… 2 tablespoons of chia seeds is included. You cant really taste them but it does a good job of thickining the jam.
I found out about it via youtube vids.
TNHunter
A no-bake pie with some freeze dried fruit powder in the glaze works really well with most fresh eating berries.
Other than that I’ll echo that some good eating fruit just comes out bad after baking. You could try something open-faced and bake it most of the way before adding some more filling or whole fruit.
Or go for a galette. Those bake for a much shorter time than a full pie and so you could preserve more of the fresh taste.
It sure looks inviting!
My pie was baked for 25-30 mins at 400F