Pie, Mixed Berries!

Haven't made pie in while. I have some visitors and some sweet berries at the house. Decide to surprise them when they get back from the day of adventure with mixed berry crumble pie. Strawberry, blueberry blackberry and raspberry [the blackberries and raspberries are frozen in my freezer] mix, I love this combination. 

Prepped the strawberries last night while the my blueberry peach jam was cooking. Before I started the crust this morning I went out for a morning walk. What a beautiful day. Even got to see a heron by the river. 

For my crust, I use Smitten Kitchen's buttery crust recipe . It is my go to recipe for pies, sooo buttery.

2 sticks of butter in this crust

all the ingredients are prepped and ready to become a pie

All done mixing, this looks good. Now for a good chill down in the refrigerator. A quick shower for me and run out to my farmers market.

can you see the butter chunks in the dough. yum!

I read up on how to avoid soggy bottom crust. Most article suggest blind baking the crust. I put it in a 450º oven for 8 minutes with parchment paper and pie weights [I use a lentils] then remove the weights and continue to bake for about 5–8 minutes more. Forgot to take a shot. Multi-tasking, making marinade for tonight dinner. Let cool while you mix up the filling

ready for the crumb . . .

. . . into the oven

Juicy, right out of the oven

Glad it didn't spill

For the filling, I had made a recipe a while back that I can't find anymore. It came out really nice, just thick enough that it wasn't not runny all over. 

UPDATE: Still VERY JUICY and it ran over the crust on the side to the bottom crust. Soggy. This is what I'll do next time. I'll mix the fruit with sugar and let it macerate, then drain the juice. Up the corn starch to 4 T and mix it in with the cinnamon. The taste was good, just the right sweet but I'd think it needed a 1/2 t more of cinnamon. The crumb was great. Maybe I'll make this one more time, to see if my adjustments work. Stay tune.

Here's a link from King Arthur Flour on pie filling thickeners that I thought was helpful after the fact. 

Preheat oven to 375º

Filling

6 c  mixed berries, I used 2 c strawberries, chopped, 2 c blueberries, 1 c blackberries and 1 c raspberries

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c corn starch

1 t cinnamon

2T butter, chopped up into small pieces 

Mix together all the ingredient for the filling except for the butter. Pour filling into the your crust then add the butter pieces to the top. 

Topping

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

1/2 c flour

1/2 c old fashion oatmeal

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t salt

1 stick butter, chopped into smaller pieces

1 c walnuts, chopped

Mix together all the ingredients for the topping till you get a crumbly appearance. Add to the top of the pie.

Bake for an hour, crumb should be golden brown and filling should be bubbling. Let rest for at least an 1/2 hour. Can be serve at room temp or even cold.