I love August.  I love the cicadas calling in the high grass and the smell of blueberries ripening on the air.  I love swimming in the afternoons and trying to get the purple out from under your fingernails after a long day of raking. And I love the blueberries.  There is something so intensely satisfying in picking a sun warmed blueberry and popping it in your mouth with that tartness on your tongue.  It’s also a very short window this heaven of blueberries in Washington County Maine (it’s one of the best parts of the whole year there… long hot days and blueberries for as far as you can run along 1A).

This year the blueberries are not cooperating – they’re super early (like when I was little raking started last week and the season ran for two weeks)and at this point have completely gone by.  I went home last week and in a panic of not getting blueberries for my year demanded my mom help me out – she did because she loves me and raked about 20 pounds of blueberries for my big sister and I to split when I got home.  I of course got home and promptly came down with a cold that put my out of commission for two days, and my blueberries sat in the fridge wiating for me to feel better.  On Thursday I did feel better.  With that good health came THIS PIE.  This pie is my ode to perfect fresh pie.  As a late night snack or breakfast it is delicious – the tartness of the berries makes it a not-too-sweet dip into the delightfulness that is this pie.  Top it with sweetened slightly whipped cream and its “practically-perfect-in-every-way.”

With August running hot and humid everywhere this is cooling in all the right ways, not to mention picking the berries on the right piece of land makes you feel as though you should live in the country slowly getting sunburned while berries pop off of their stems forever, though I may be a bit partial. 

Fresh Berry Pie a la Mom
Note: This pie can go in a crust or just in a bowl topped by whipped cream, it’s delicious either way.  Either way its a “day-of” kind of pie.  You can use frozen berries to create the glaze, thus preserving your fresh if you like.

For the Crust – Buy it.  Brush it with egg white and bake at 350 for 10-15 mins until its golden.   Let it cool completely.

For the Pie
2 Qts fresh berries (any kind though I like blueberry) cut to bite sized pieces, washed and picked over, 3/4 cup reserved
1 cup Sugar
1 cup water
1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg (optional)
1/2 tsp Cinnamon (optional)
3 Tbs Cornstarch (shaken with 1/4 cup water)
1/2 Lemon, juiced (about 1 Tbs)

Add water, sugar and 1 cup of the berries to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.  Once the water/sugar/berries/nutmeg/cinnamon have come to a boil add the cornstarch/water to it.  Continue to simmer that sauce for 5 minutes until it is clear and think (this is a great fruit glaze in general).  Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.  In a large bowl gently fold the sauce into the fresh berries, evenly coating them.  Drop this pie filling into your pre-baked crust and smooth it out until it’s even, it will slightly overfill an 8″ crust and come to the top of a 9″.  Top the filled pie with the reserved berries and refrigerate for 2-3 hours – I suggest taking this opportunity to locate more berries for your second pie.  Serve with a generous dallop of very slightly whipped cream. DELICIOUS.  Enjoy.

So… Failure in the kitchen makes me horrifically sad.  I nearly start to cry and Boyfriend always has to steal whatever I have deemed unacceptable away from me so I don’t throw it out in a fit of anger.  Most of the time these failures can be attributed to one of two things 1) I got sloppy and missed a step or 2) I was hurrying and just didn’t wait properly.  This failure falls into the didn’t wait category.

When I got home from work and saw that I had missed a UPS package I immediately called them and asked the UPS office to hold it, in the distribution center down the street for pick-up the next day.  Then I googled ice cream recipes for 10 hours, custard, sorbets, fro-yos, sorbettos, gelatos, you name it I was obsessively searching for it on google as a break in for my new Ice Cream Maker attachment for the KitchenAid (otherwise known as Esther).  I found four to try and printed them out for later and trekked home in a downpour.  Did you know there are 3 UPS buildings in a 1 block radius in Watertown?  Neither did I.   I had to go to all of them before finding my ice cream maker and heading home with it to freeze.

Now: Day 2 Ice Cream Maker is frozen and I can’t find the Ice cream recipes I so carefully weeded through – ANYWHERE.  They’re gone the way of the cooler temperatures so I’ll use the one from the KitchenAid book that came with it, it can’t be that bad right?  And you know in all fairness to the KitchenAid people – it probably wasn’t, the custard base tasted fine and the berries were delicious (like a big kid slushpuppy glazed in Chambord).  But I couldn’t wait and poured the STILL STEAMING custard into the nicely frozen ice cream maker.  Failure.  SO.MUCH.FAILURE.  I turned it on and went to watch 30Rock, nothing happened but some sweat peeing onto the counter.  Sadness.

The next morning it was full of shard of ice – like it had melted and refrozen all wrong.  The worst experience ever with ice cream.  Maybe take two will be better?  Keep your fingers crossed for me because those stillettos of ice were just not pleasant melting in my mouth.  Not at all.

Custard Ice Cream with Mixed Berries
Note: I’m sure with patience I can actually make this ice cream.  Now if I only knew where I had put that down.

Mixed Berry Mash
2 cups mixed berries, I used raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries
2 Tbs of your favorite liquor or brandy (I used Chambord and it tasted EXACTLY like a blue slush puppy)

Mix the berries together in a bowl with the liquor and mash them a bit with a masher so they’re all about he same size and some of the juice has been a little pressed out.

Custard Ice Cream Base
2 1/2 cups half and half
8 Egg Yolks
1 cup sugar (I used 2/3 cup)
2 1/2 cups whipping cream
4 tsp Vanilla
1/8 tsp salt

In a saucepan heat the half and half to just bubbling – stirring often to keep it from scalding.
Mix the sugar and egg yolks together in a medium bowl stirring until they’re thick and ribbony, about 2 minutes of mixing by hand.  Mix in the half and half to the eggs and sugar slowly while continuing to stir to keep the eggs from scrambling.  Stir the whole thing until it has set and is a light yellow color.  Return the egg, sugar, and half and half mixture to the pan and bring to a second simmer stirring constantly until it starts to lightly bubble on the edges – DO NOT BOIL IT. Put the hot custard base back into your mixing bowl and gently stir in the vanilla, salt and cream.  Cover and do what I was too impatient to do and CHILL IT.  Watch a movie, have a nap, go to bed then make breakfast.  AFTER cooling put the chilled custard in the bowl of your ice cream maker and follow the instructions.  Add the mixed berries at the very very end just in the last two or three twirls of the ice cream maker.  And there it is.  I hope you have better luck than I did.