The Continuing Haskap Berry Saga

Papa Pea and I finished harvesting the haskap berries from the last of our three bushes this morning.  They're different than blueberries in that the haskaps ripen all at one time so there's only the one picking of them.

All told, we got a total of 7-3/4 quarts from the three bushes.  Actually, the berries looked so thick and plentiful on the bushes that I thought it might be more than that.  The bulk of them are in the freezer waiting to (possibly) be turned into wine this winter.

While picking the berries, we both kept sampling berries right off the bush.  Golldang, the darn things were sour!  Not nice at all.  (Explain again just why we're growing these??)

As we finished the harvesting, Papa Pea said he would really, really like to have a quart of them made into a pie.  Just to see how they would be that way.

So after lunch today I put together a haskap berry pie using my blueberry pie recipe.  The haskaps are much "juicier" than blueberries so instead of the usual scant 1/3 cup of flour I use for thickener with blueberries, I increased it to a slightly rounded 1/3 cup.  Otherwise, I used the same ingredients, not increasing the sugar at all.  I knew that was chancy considering the sourness of the berries, but wanted to see if the pie would be edible without having to ingest any more sugar than absolutely necessary.

I should have baked the pie on a cookie sheet or put some foil under it because, drat and blast, it burbled over (big time) and made a real mess on the floor of my oven.  It even set off our smoke alarm.

When I took the pie out of the oven, the ingredients were still very "liquid-y" and I envisioned us having to eat it out of the pie plate with a spoon.

However, it did set up as it cooled, and I was able to get two slices for our dessert tonight out easily.  The slurpiness you see in the pie plate is what ran out from the main part of the pie after I served our two pieces.

How did it taste?  Very, very good!  (Well, I'll be darned.)  It has a tartness to it (neither of us would call it sour), but we both rated it quite flavorful.  (I'll be double-darned.)  Much better than I had expected.

Now all I have to remember to do is clean the oven before lighting it again.

If I forget, the smoke alarm will be going off again for sure.