Fantasy Foods Friday: Pernese Bubbly Pies!

Hello, all, and welcome to the very first edition of a new series I'm calling Fantasy Foods Fridays.

Every Friday, I will post a new food item that I've made that is featured in a fantasy novel, film or tv show.

We'll talk about the project, and the place it holds in its respective fandom. Ready? Ok, let's begin!


  

Pernese Bubbly Pies

Bubbly Pies come to us from the wonderful words of Anne McCafferey, author of the wonderful Dragonrider's of Pern series. There are a whole list of books, and they are wonderful- some of the first fantasy I ever read. If you haven't read them I recommend you do so soon!

In McCafferey's books, Bubbly Pies are a kind of fair food. Served at special events and "Gathers", which are essentially the modern equivalent of a street fair.  They are served hot, straight from the oven, and are filled with some sort of a sweet berry filling.

Mouth watering yet? Mine is!  So, on to making Bubbly Pies!

The Crust:

If you look, you'll find plenty of recipes for bubbly pies. There was one published in The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, and plenty of other people have come up with their own. The secret, like any pie, is in the crust.

For Bubbly Pies, we wanted a sweet pie crust. Something that would hold the weight of the filling while it was hot, definitely not something flaky, and something that would taste good on its own if you got a bit or two with no filling.

We ended up making a pie crust that incorporated the ingredients in the picture above for the first batch:
flour
sugar
oil (butter or crisco)
cinnamon
vanilla
baking powder
nutmeg
eggs

 while Momma was mixing the pie dough, I started on the filing. We used three different berries: raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. We had frozen blueberries on hand, but bought fresh raspberries and blackberries.

I mixed the berries with some sugar, a bit of lemon juice and a little cinnamon:

I swear it looked better than this. Note the super cool cow creamer in the corner. Aaaaaaaw right.

Anyway, when I mixed the berries up, it looked a bit like this:

And yeah, I know, the raspberry is a little... gross looking. Tasty though. Really tasty.

At this point, we had to resist sitting down with spoons and just EATING the filling, as it is absolutely DELICIOUS. Mom, meanwhile was rolling out the pie dough and cutting it into circles:

We wanted the pies to be big enough to hold in one hand. These circles are about 7-8 inches across, and the pies were just a little smaller than that when they were done.

We cut the circles out, and put them on Parchment paper on a cookie sheet. You realllllllly don't want to skip this step. Like, really, really. Because the things are going to drip. And the paper will save you a HECK of a lot of mess.

Anyway, next, I put a big spoonful of one of the berry fillings on top of the circle.

Excuse the bad lighting, please!

You want to keep the filling in the center of the pie circle, to minimize drippage. I found that a slotted spoon was VERY helpful for this. Then I took a small spoon to put a couple spoonfuls of the juice on top.

When the filling was on, I put a second circle on top and then crimped the edges with my fingers. Were I to do it again, I would try with a fork or a ravioli crimper-thingy, as I still got major baked good leakage. 

Anyway, then they went in the oven. We pulled them out when they were golden brown on the top and the edges.

These are best served warm- somewhere between too hot to taste due to lava for filling, and dryer-fresh warmth. However, they're excellent at room temperature too.

The blueberry ones were the sweetest, followed by the raspberry and the blackberry, which was the most tart (although still plenty sweet!)

 

Please let me know if you try them in the comments, or, if you have an idea for a Fantasy Food, you can email me at charisweible[@]yahoo.com (just remove the brackets!)


Have a fantastic Friday, and remember to find your own magic!

Until next time~
xoxo