I decided to go kamikaze blackberry picking yesterday. The owner was helping me out, holding the bushes open since the good berries were hidden from the sun since it was so late in the season. When he wasn't helping me, I decided to continue diving right in, resulting in armfuls of scratches that burn when I run... and let's not even discuss the decision to use hand sanitizer last night.
Anyway, five quarts later, I have an asinine amount of blackberries in this house. We gave one quart away, froze two, and looked around for a project for the other two. We also have an asinine amount of graham crackers leftover from our BBQ this weekend, so I decided that whatever was about to happen had to involve graham crackers and blackberries.
Let me just say that I try not to bake very often because neither of us have any self control (and I hate doing dishes), so I needed to find something healthy that wouldn't be the end of the world if we were to say, I don't know... split a pie in one sitting.
I came across a recipe for a Rustic Blackberry Pie with Graham Cracker Crust over at Blue-Eyed Bakers. I knew I could replace the sugar with Splenda, but I was hoping to find a crust with less sugar and maybe no butter, so I continued my search, only to come across Chocolate Covered Katie's Healthy Graham Cracker Pie Crust. I was STOKED that it only had two ingredients, both of which I had on hand, but I was also pretty skeptical about whether it would work.
Well, it did!
It was super easy to combine the two recipes, so I thought I'd share my version with you!
Blackberry Graham Cracker Pie
Crust:
10 graham crackers
2 T. almond milk
Filling:
4 1/2 cups of blackberries
12 packets of Splenda
3 T. cornstarch
1 T. vanilla extract
Step One: Pick a shit ton of blackberries.
Step Two: Process the graham crackers into crumbles using a food processor. (I used my Ninja. If you don't have a food processor, I'm fairly certain a blender would work.) Once they're ground down, add the 2 T. almond milk and mix until they're combined. In a pie pan, smush down the graham cracker mix. Make sure you press VERY. HARD. since there is no fat to hold the crust together. I popped mine in the freezer to set then while I mixed the blackberry filling.
Step Three: Mix 3 cups of blackberries (the rest will be the topping), 12 packets of Splenda, and 3 T. of cornstarch in a mixing bowl. Smash down the blackberries a bit to make juice, then let the mixture sit for about 15 minutes.
Step Four: Heat the mixed berries in a saucepan over medium heat for about 8-10 minutes, or until the mixture is thickened. Stir often and scrape the bottom, otherwise your berries might scorch and stick to the pan. (And let's be honest, who wants to clean that up? It's bad enough you've got purple hands and utensils and likely purple all over your counter at this point.)
Step Five: Remove from heat, stir in vanilla.
Step Six: Spoon your blackberry mixture into the prepared crust, top with the remaining berries, pop that baby in the fridge until you're ready to eat it. We'll be plopping some sugar free whipped cream on ours, but this would be AWESOME with vanilla ice cream (which again, we can't keep in the house because we have zero self control.)
And while you're waiting for it to chill, hop over to Blue Eyed Bakers and Chocolate Covered Katie for more awesome recipes.
Nutrition Facts (8 servings)
Calories: 160
Fat: 2.7 g
Saturated Fat: 0 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Cholesterol: 0 g
Sodium: 91.6 mg
Potassium: 284.4 mg
Carbs: 34.7 g
Fiber: 8.7 g
Sugar: 12.7 g
Protein: 3.4 g
Vitamin A: 6.7%
Vitamin C: 53.6%
Calcium: 5.1%
Iron: 9.1%
Enjoy!