Apricots: Apricot and Blackberry Pie

“The apricots lying in moss had the amber glow of sunset shining on dark-haired girls.”*

Stone Love: Apricots

Apricot and Blackberry Pie

Sometimes when you set out to get the ingredients for a particular recipe, you find yourself detoured. It only took one look at the fruit set out by the Stauffer family at the farmers’ market to know what pie to make. As eagerly as we await a peach pie, it wasn’t meant to be, at least this week. While there were white and yellow peaches, they were the cling variety so they came home for eating. We’ll have to wait for the easier to use freestone variety for a pie.

But there were apricots and blackberries. The apricots were already soft and ripe, so they went into the refrigerator along with the blackberries. 

Stone fruits such as apricots and peaches may need a little extra ripening when you bring them home. Place the unripe (hard) fruit on a plate and let it sit a room temperature. Check it daily to see if the fruit yields slightly to the touch, the sign that it’s ripe. Place the fruit into the refrigerator where it will remain ripe and ready but will not ripen any further.

You may need to adjust the sugar in your pie. Both the apricots and blackberries were perfectly sweet (one advantage to locally grown fruit) and they didn’t taste as if they need too much extra sweetening.

Since I have included instructions for rolling a crust in previous pie recipes, I have omitted them here. You can always reference one of those recipes. Pie dough and crumb topping recipes are also available in other recipes.

Apricot and Blackberry Crumb Pie

For one 9” pie

1 recipe pie dough for a 9” pie

1 recipe crumb topping

1 pint apricots (2 cups pitted apricots)

1 pint blackberries (2 cups)

¼ cup sugar

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

1. Rinse the fruits separately. Remove and discard the pits from the apricots. If the apricots are large, you can cut the apricots into quarters. Place the apricots into a bowl. Add the blackberries. Add the sugar to the fruit, stir, and let stand for 30 minutes to release some of their juices.

2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Add the cornstarch to the bowl of fruit and gently stir until the cornstarch is dissolved. Remove the prepared pie shell from the refrigerator. Spread the fruit and their juices evenly into the pie shell. Cover with the crumb topping. Place the pie on a baking pan. Place the pie into the oven and bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 45 to 50 minutes until the fruit is bubbling and the crumb topping is nicely browned. Remove from oven and let cool. Some detours are well worth it.

* from The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola (translation by Mark Kurlansky)