Rhi's Wild Blackberry Pie

As promised to a few of the party goers at Christina's Shindig last night - I am posting the recipe for the Homemade Blackberry Pie that I brought as part of the potluck.  This is not your standard blackberry Pie recipe.  I went in to get started on it only to find out that my roommates had wiped out all of the regular, granulated sugar in my kitchen some time in the past couple of weeks.  I was left scambling through the cupboard to figure out how I was going to make this pie with no granulated sugar, since I knew that I didn't have enough brown sugar on hand to do so - and I wasn't pleased with the idea of what sort of flavor change it would cause if I did.

What I DID happen to have on hand (other than the brown sugar that I knew I didn't want to use) was HONEY.  Lots and lots and LOTS of Sage Blossom Honey, in fact, which I had originally purchased to brew Mead out of.  It had been sitting in the cupboard waiting to be used, and it just screamed at me "Now Is The Time!"

This is what The Pie looked like prior to be Devistated by the partygoers, who decended on it like a veritable plague of locusts, or sharks in a feeding frenzy....

The photo was taken while we were en-route to Christina's, so no one had been given an opportunity to start munching on it yet.

Recipe:

3 lbs (about 5 1/2 cups) fresh Blackberries (while you could probably use frozen, they tend to juice out to quickly as they thaw)
3 1/2 lbs (about 2 3/4 cups) Honey - preferably a mildly flavored single source variatel honey, rather than the generic clover honey that's so readily available, though I'm guessing it would work just as well.
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground clove
1 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

double recipe of your favorite pie crust - or just get a package of pie crust ready made as long as it has 2 crusts available.

Heat blackberries and juice until just warmed through.  Add honey and stir thoroughly to mix completely.  Add spices, and bring to a boil for 3 to 5 minutes, to thicken a bit and reduce the amount of liquid.  (You'll still probably have more Juice than you can shake a stick at, but it's great to drink over ice once it's cooled down and the pie is baking!)

In a 9 inch pie pan, lay out bottom crust, then cover with the blackberries and a small amount of the juice.  Latice second crust over the top (or just lay it over, and slit it several times).  Take 1/4 cup of the remaining juice and add 1/2 cup extra honey to thin out the honey, then brush the top crust liberally with the honey/juice mixture.  Sprinkle brown sugar liberally over the honey moistened top crust -enough that it quits disolving in the moisture.

Bake at 400 degrees in a preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until top crust in golden brown.

Yes folks, it really was That Simple!  It's not all that difficult to cook some truly amazing food, with just a bit of creativity, and the will not to tell yourself you "can't" make this or that because you're out of 1 ingredient that can be substituted.