Boysenberry Pie

the deep, dark, winey double-crust pie that made Knott's Berry Farm famous: California's own blackberry-raspberry hybrid thickened and baked between flaky pastry, eaten warm with ice cream

Origin: United States

From the journey of Blackberry.

The boysenberry is a Californian invention, a large, soft, deep-maroon hybrid of blackberry, raspberry, and loganberry raised in the nineteen-twenties by Rudolph Boysen and rescued from his failing vines by Walter Knott, who propagated it, named it after its originator, and planted it at his roadside farm in Buena Park. When times were hard in the Depression, Knott's wife Cordelia began selling pies and preserves from a tea room beside the berry stand, and the boysenberry pie she baked became so celebrated that it drew crowds, spawned an amusement park around itself, and turned Knott's Berry Farm into a Californian institution. The pie remains the fruit's definitive dish: the boysenberry's flavour, deeper and more winey than a blackberry and more aromatic than a raspberry, is shown at its finest baked whole in a double crust, the fruit thickened just enough to hold a slice and its dark juice bleeding into the flaky pastry. Eaten warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it is one of the great American fruit pies and the taste of mid-century California.

Ingredients

Pastry

  • 350 g plain flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 250 g cold unsalted butter, cubed
  • 90 ml iced water, approximately

Filling

  • 900 g boysenberries (or blackberries), fresh or frozen
  • 200 g caster sugar
  • 45 g cornstarch
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 0.25 tsp salt

Assembly

  • 1 whole egg, beaten, for glazing
  • 1 tbsp demerara sugar, for sprinkling

Method

  1. Make the pastry: rub or pulse the cold butter into the flour and salt until it resembles coarse crumbs, then add just enough iced water to bring it to a dough. Divide in two, one piece slightly larger, flatten into discs, wrap, and chill for at least an hour.
  2. Toss the boysenberries with the caster sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and salt until evenly coated. If using frozen berries, let them thaw a little and drain off some of the excess juice.
  3. Heat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan) with a baking tray inside. Roll out the larger disc and line a 23 cm pie dish, letting the pastry overhang. Fill with the fruit, mounding it in the centre. Roll out the second disc for the lid.
  4. Brush the rim of the base with beaten egg, lay over the lid, trim, and crimp the edges to seal. Cut a few steam vents in the top, or weave a lattice if you prefer. Brush all over with beaten egg and sprinkle with demerara sugar.
  5. Bake on the hot tray for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven to 180°C (160°C fan) and bake for a further 30 to 35 minutes, until the crust is deep golden and the juices bubble thickly through the vents. Cool for at least 2 hours before slicing. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream.

Notes

Boysenberries are hard to find fresh outside California and the southern hemisphere, so frozen boysenberries, or a mixture of blackberries and raspberries that approximates the hybrid's flavour, are the usual substitute and make an excellent pie. The filling should be generously mounded, as the fruit collapses considerably as it cooks. A tapioca or a mixture of cornstarch and flour can replace the cornstarch as the thickener; whichever you use, do not stint it, as these are among the juiciest of all pie fruits.

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