Jessica Bakes | Mulberry Pie

Yesterday I made something incredible - a mulberry pie using berries from our own tree! We’ve got buckets of berries right now (or we would.. if we harvested them all) so what’s a gal to do? Make pie of course!

I used three cups of berries, which would be the equivalent of four or five hearty shakes of a branch over a sheet. I picked out the darkest and juiciest ripe berries, washed and measured them out. And don’t worry about the little stems - they soften and don’t negatively effect this delicious pie! 

“I’m a berry eater, mama!”

After a quick internet search and a combo of recipes, here’s what I came up with:

Mulberry Pie Recipe

• Two store bought pie crusts (for a 9" pie)
  
• 3 C mulberries
  
• 1/3 C flour*
  
• 2/3 C sugar*
  
• ½ t freshly ground nutmeg
  
• 2 T butter, cut into cubes
  
• Milk to brush on top crust

* plus a little extra (maybe ½ t each) to dust your crust before adding the filling. 

Let your pie crust warm up just a bit after taking them out of the fridge. I used to make my own crust, but it really stressed me out and took a lot of the fun out of pie making for me. So now I just dial 1-800-Betty Crocker (errr… buy the two pack at the grocery) and call it a day. Baking should be fun! 

To start, mix your berries, flour, sugar and nutmeg in a bowl. Add mulberries and coat them thoroughly. 

Before adding filling, dust the crust of your pie shell.

Top with cubed butter.

Cut and weave lattice top using second pie crust. Hide butter under intersections.

Crimp edges and lightly brush with milk.

Turn on and pre-heat your oven to 400F. Meanwhile, put your prepared pie in the fridge to chill for around 20 minutes.

Bake at 400 for 15 minutes. Covered pie edges (with a silicon ring or foil) and turn the temp down to 350. Bake for another 40 minutes or until top is golden brown. Let pie cool for at least an hour and a half before serving (we had ours with vanilla ice cream!)

This pie is so subtle and on our first service (shortly after baking) the nutmeg came through strongly. The next morning when I had a piece (well, two pieces), the mulberry and nutmeg had blended beautifully. This is not a super sweet pie, like you might expect with blueberries or cherries, but that’s why we liked it so much!!

Jessica Bakes | Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

I haven’t been in the kitchen nearly as much as I’d like lately, but for Father’s Day I cook Adam and homemade breakfast (biscuits and sausage gravy) and then we hosted my in laws for lunch. For dessert I made strawberry lemonade cupcakes and the best part - no artificial colors or flavors were used! Here’s how I did it…

For the cupcakes I used a lemon cupcake recipe I found online here. I minimized the batch to a dozen servings, but actually ended up only having enough batter for 10 cupcakes. No problem - we can’t eat that many anyway! The only recommendation I have is to bake slightly less than the 17 minutes suggested. My cake was a little on the dry side - but still delicious! 

For the frosting, I modified a recipe I saw a while back online. It’s a basic buttercream base (stick of butter, tablespoon of vanilla, tablespoon of lemon juice and 2-3 cups of powdered sugar). To get the strawberry flavor (this is nuts), I emptied out two boxes of Special K to get all of the freeze dried berries out. My grocery didn’t carry them separately so at 7am on a Sunday morning I had to be creative. And it worked! It ended up being about .02 oz which doesn’t seem like a lot, but was probably a half to ¾ cup. To make them into a powder, I ran them through my coffee grinder and then a fine mesh sieve. I admit I’m not super perfect with measuring - I like to taste and adjust as I go. This made for a pretty thick frosting - you could add a little milk or more lemon juice to thin it out to your desired piping consistency. 

I love this idea especially because of the lack of food coloring (which I’m not all together opposed to, but the more natural you can make something, the better in my opinion). The flavor is great too! Down the road I will experiment with other fruits too (I know Target carries freeze dried fruit for my own future reference). I think I might try adding powdered fruits to my favorite cream cheese frosting - maybe a swirl of plain and flavored? Mmmmmm. 

I topped my cupcakes with fresh farmer’s market berries. I find the smaller local berries to be much more flavorful than the jumbo kind available year round.  

These make for a perfect June treat! 

Jessica Bakes | Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

I have been on a roll with baking cupcakes lately! A few weeks ago I did four dozen using spirits from my husband’s distillery for a party they held (see photos with details here and here) and then I did red velvet cupcakes for the Super Bowl. 

Today I’m sharing a recipe I’ve been tweaking for the past couple of weeks - Mint Chocolate Cupcakes! I think the key is in the kind of mint you use and how much… read on for details!

Chocolate Mint Cakes 

Yields 16

• 3 T butter, softened
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 C, 2T sugar
  
• 1 C flour
  
• ½ C unsweetened cocoa
  
• 1 ½ t baking powder
  
• 1/8 t baking soda
  
• ¾ C milk
  
• ½ t vanilla extract
  
• 1 drop peppermint extract
  
• 1 drop spearmint oil
  

Preheat your over to 350 and line your cupcake tin with parchment liners.

Cream together soft butter and sugar in a mixer until combined.  Add one egg at a time and mix thoroughly.

In another bowl, sift together remaining dry ingredients.

Add vanilla, spearmint and peppermint to milk.

Alternate adding dry and wet ingredients to batter, making sure to fully combine. 

Give it a good whip on high. Fill liners about half way to ¾ full using an ice cream scoop (this was a tool that really upped my game!)

Bake 17 minutes and check with a toothpick to ensure center is baked through (a clean toothpick means they are ready to come out!)

While they are cooling, prep your icing!

Mint Cream Cheese Icing with Oreos

This is my favorite icing base and I use it for every kind of flavor I do! Be VERY careful adding the mint extract and oil… the smallest amount goes a very long way and gives a wonderful nuance to the flavor. Too much and it tastes like toothpaste!

Yields enough to frost 16-20 cupcakes

• 6 oz cream cheese, softed
  
• 6 oz butter, softened
  
• 2 C powdered sugar
  
• 2 drops green food coloring
  
• 1 drop blue food coloring
  
• 1 drop spearmint oil*
  
• 1 drop peppermint extract*
  
• 2 Oreo Cookies, smashed
  

Cream together softened cream cheese and butter until fully combined and fluffy. 

Slowly add powdered sugar in ½ C increments.

Add food coloring and mix until pigment is combined.

*Now for the mint. Using a spoon, drip one drop of each flavor and let it roll off the spoon. Stir the icing with that spoon and remix to incorporate flavor. Taste your icing and repeat if necessary. 

When flavor is to your liking, fold in crumbled Oreo cookies, leaving enough crumbs to garnish your frosted cupcakes.

Once cupcakes have completely cooled, use a large star tip (Wilton 1M shown here) to ice and top with crumbled cookies.