I decided to get fancy with the pie crust... It oooozed. Oops.
But still delicious!! I use cinnamon and nutmeg in this pie, and it's super tasty but not overpowering. My recipe calls for blackberry liqueur, but all we had was Elderberry. Quite random, but it works!
Pie = Heaven. Amen.
Next on the agenda for my blackberries?
ICE CREAM!
I'd never made ice cream before, but I just went for it.
Cooking the berries down with some sugar.
Straining out the seeds...Check out all that steam!
I tempered the eggs with the half & half....which worried me because I let them go a bit too high, and they started to scramble...however, it all smoothed out eventually! Phew.
I added it to the cream, and then I swirled in the blackberry juice.
Swirling was the prettiest and most fun part of the process! :)
After sending the mixture through the ice cream machine, I chopped up some high-quality bittersweet chocolate for half of it....
And plunked in fresh blackberries in the other half.
All set and frozen! Mmm...
So excited that my first batch of ice cream turned out well! David absolutely loved it, and couldn't believe it was homemade! Score.
Next up... for some coworker's birthdays:
BLACKBERRY CUPCAKES!
Puree the blackberries. I've become quite used to the puree/strain procedure by now...
What a blue batter!! I was surprised at how blue it was considering how dark and purple the juice was.
Blue cupcakes... Let's dress these up with some Swiss Meringue Buttercream! My favorite.
Oh dear. I had this beautiful SMBC, but after adding in blackberry juice, it was a curdled mess. It wouldn't come together, but after a few hours of refrigeration, and 10 minutes whipping on high speed...
It finally came together! Lovely color AND delicious :)
Top 'em off with some fresh berries...
Honestly, my favorite bites were the ones with a fresh berry bit in it! Such a delightful contrast of textures (speaking of which, the actual cake was a little too dense in my opinion, but the frosting made up for it with its silky smooth sweet qualities)
NOM!
