Chocolate Blackberry Pie

I spent ALL day today- revamping the blog. I hope you guys like the face-lift. I wanted to more modern, simple twist for For the Love of Dessert and I wanted to update the About Me section since so much has changed this year! Well since I spent all day re-configuring the blog, I may not have gotten around to cleaning the apartment like I planned.. opps!

I get to have more free time, now that I am on holiday break and while Ninja is resting I have found a lot of time to do some baking. But now- the hubby has too many desserts ;) Definitely not the worse problem to have. So I thought I would take this weekend away from baking- now that the hubby is officially off work-- to spend some time with him, Ninja and to catch up on work :/ (ahh..the life of a grad student). Oh, yea, and to clean too :) But I actually LOVE cleaning!

Today, I attempted to make my very first pie! Can you believe it!?! All the desserts and dishes I have made but I have never made a pie! I thought my time was up and I needed to do it. Well, a former lab-mate posted this wonderful recipe on her awesome food blog, Cinnamon Freud, for this Black and White Cherry Pie. It looked divine and I knew I had to make it. Though, her recipe called for cranberries and the hubby is not a fan of cranberries, so he picked out blackberries. Plus- it called for a chocolate crust!?! Had me at chocolate :) I was really excited to learn to how to make homemade pie crust and just a pie :) I think it turned out pretty darn good! 

CHOCOLATE BLACKBERRY PIE

Adapted from Cinnamon Freud and  Kayotic Kitchen

INGREDIENTS

Preheat Oven to 375F Degrees

FOR THE CHOCOLATE CRUST*

4.5 oz of butter, softened

2 c. flour

5 tbsp. cocoa powder

5 tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp. ice water

2 eggs

1/2 tsp. vanilla 

*I chose to use this recipe because it does not require to refrigerate for long. Also Kayotic Kitchen has a nice step by step picture tutorial. 

FOR THE FILLING

16 oz white chocolate

2 c. blackberries

3/8 c. water

1/3 c. sugar

1 c. heavy cream

2 tbsp. light corn syrup

4 tbsp. butter

DIRECTIONS

For the crust: place butter in a small-medium size bowl and cut into pieces. Then add flour and cocoa powder and using fork stir well. Pour in the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until mixture turns into crumbles. Add sugar, ice water, eggs, and  vanilla-- pulse until dough forms into a ball. If the dough is too watery- add more flour/cocoa; if it is too dry add ice water 1 tsp. at a time (this may seem like a small amount but the consistency of the dough will change quickly). Take out of food processor and kneed for a bit. Then on a clean surface, sprinkled with a little flour, roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Transfer the dough to a pie tray and trim edges (or decorate edge as desired). Refrigerate remaining dough  and refrigerate pie crust for 30 minutes. Once refrigerated poke holes in crust using fork. 

Cover a circular piece of aluminum foil with butter- use buttered side of aluminum to line the pie crust and fill with a weight (Cinnamon Freud used dried beans but I did not have any so I used rice). Bake for 20 minutes. Then, remove weight and bake for an additional 10 minutes. 

For filling: While pie crust is refrigerating- chop white chocolate into small chunks and place into medium size bowl- set aside. On the stove top, in two saucepans (1) on medium heat- combine blackberries, water and sugar and cook about 10 minutes until blackberries have softened and turned a reddish color and (2) on high heat, combine heave cream, light corn syrup and butter- and bring to boil. When the blackberries are cooked, pour through colander to remove excess liquid. Set blackberries aside. When butter-cream mixture comes to a boil pour over white chocolate and whisk till smooth. Then add in blackberries. Pour mixture into pie crust and refrigerate over night until filling has hardened. 

Enjoy,

Chika 

P.S. My kitchen was a bit of a mess after this :) Just to warn you. But it was fun!