Today i had had two exams and on top of that i cleaned my appartment since it had started looking like a bomb exploded here, so i felt i should maybe treat myself to some quick late night baking. I'm still in sugar strike so i had to think a little what i should do and then i decided i should make my usual berry pie but replace the sugar with honey. In my sugar strike honey and the sugar that is in fruits are ok, but i don't eat processed sugar. So i basically just threw some kind of a recipe out of the top of my mind and hoped for the best.

 

Berry pie (honey version)

Batter:

- 150 g margarine or butter

- 2 tbsp honey

- 1 egg

- 3 dl wheat flour

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1/2 dl rolled oats

 

Filling:

- 1-2 dl berries of your choice

- 250 g or 2,5 dl of quarck/curd (maitorahka), natural yoghurt or "kermaviili"

- 1 - 1,5  tbsp honey

- 1 egg

Melt the margarine and add the rest of the ingredients with the baking powder incorporated in the flour. Mix until smooth and press down with wet hands in a pie mold (about 24 cm in diameter) lined with baking paper.

A good tip for getting the right size baking paper in a round mold is to put the mold upside down on top of the baking paper, drawing the outline and cutting out a piece about 1 cm larger all around the drawn line. And you know how annoying it is to press the paper down in the mold and just when you're about to put the batter in the paper bounces out or rolls up. To hold the paper in place, drizzle just a few drops of water in the mold before placing the paper on top.

Sprinkle the berries evenly on top of the batter. You can use any berries you think suits the pie. I used blueberries and red currants this time. Also rhubarb goes very well in this pie, and you can even try apples. The apple pie might take a little longer to bake. Remember that the sweetness of different berries vary, so for not so sweet berries use more sugar and for sweet berries use less. The only berry i don't use so much in this pie is strawberry, atleast if they're frozen, since big strawberries make the pie very wet and maybe too sweet.

Mix together the rest of the filling ingredients, pour the filling on top of the berries and even it out. I used natural yoghurt this time since i happened to have some left in the fridge. Bake in 200 degrees celcius for 20-30 mins depending on your oven. From what i've noticed a good tip to know when the pie is done is when the crust has gotten golden brown and the center of the pie has risen up a little. Let the pie set and cool before cutting, since at this point the filling is still runny and the flavour of the pie is not at its best warm.

 

If you don't want to use the honey pie recipe, you can use my original one, the one i usually use. There are many variations of this pie recipe going around so it's nothing special.

 

Berry pie (normal version)

Batter:

- 150 g margarine or butter

- 1 - 1,5 dl sugar

- 1 egg

- 3 dl wheat flour

- 1 tsp baking powder

 

Filling:

- 1-2 dl berries of your choice

- 250 g or 2,5 dl of quarck/curd, natural yoghurt or "kermaviili"

- 0,5 - 1 dl sugar

- 1 egg

- 1 tsp vanilla sugar

Either whip the sugar together with room temperature margarine with an electric mixer or melt the margarine the way it was done in the recipe with honey in it. Everything else is done the same way as in the recipe above. There's no rolled oats in this version, since i mainly put it in the honey version to compensate the volume of the sugar.

I think my pie turned out quite well even though i hadn't tried anything like this without sugar before. It tasted almost exactly like the normal kind, with a slight hint of honey taste to it. Here's my pie:

Looks like the boogeyman is after my piece...

 

Hunajainen marjapiirakka - Kermaviilipiirakka