They grow like weeds out here. Still, finding a perfectly ripe patch, as of yet unmolested by other pickers, is a treat.
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@MunchkinRedux I admire your restraint in being able to wait overnight to taste this pie. We used to live in Oregon, and there was an empty lot on our street which had the neighborhood blackberry bramble. I remember walking over to it with a stainless steel bowl and filling it with blackberries in minutes. Definitely one of the hallmarks of summer. Enjoy your bounty!
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Yes, I know people who zealously guard their wild blackberry finds even in my urban environment, and are torn about keeping the volunteers in their backyards, which can encroach.
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Blackberries in any form are one of those precious things in life that everyone shoud experience. When we lived in the SFBA we had a hillside behind our home that had zillions of the wild, small juicy ones and we made quarts of blackberry jelly every year. Did we make pie? No! We made a cobbler once in awhile. Oh, I can smell those crushed berries cooking away…
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I do u-pick blackberries, but I’ve never stumbled upon them in the wild. The truly wild berries I’ve had in my life have been life-changing… wish I could find wild blackberries!
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@MunchkinRedux, I should mention that probably the best fruit sorbet I ever made was a blackberry sorbet made from dead-ripe berries from volunteer backyard bushes around 25 years ago. Just puréed and strained blackberries with simple syrup and lemon juice to taste, and it had the most intense flavor and dyed the tongue purple.
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That sounds so good! I love sorbets. I used up all my blackberries, but I’m hoping to go back for a few more to make blackberry-raspberry frozen yogurt. I made this last year, and it was a winner.
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I had a recipe for blackberry sorbet that used Creme de Cassis, excellent.
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I’ve added crème de cassis to plum sorbet and frozen yogurt.
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I’ve added crème de cassis to plum sorbet and frozen yogurt.
I had to look it up - I’ve never tried it. I’ll look for it, but also out of curiosity, do you think a homemade version could measure up?
I’ve had pretty good luck with homemade liqueurs, so I don’t see why not, if you’re able to get black currants. The designated three-month keeping time is pretty conservative, especially refrigerated, and I assume it would be good a nice while longer or that’d be a whole lotta kirs to get through in a short while.
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Yes, it does, and that looks accurate.
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To those who don’t live in the PNW, the himalayan blackberry is a weed. Likely labeled a noxious weed. It was brought here and sold in nurseries until people discovered that it completely takes over here - it loves the growing conditions so much. Now you will find it basically everywhere. It’s good and bad. Delicious. But everyone with a yard is fighting to keep it from encroaching. The vines are sharp and long and treacherous 
But it makes a great hiking snack as you are walking the numerous trails here.
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We had hillsides of the wild blackberry where I lived. We had a small patch of the thornless blackberry that we cultivated and did well, wasn’t invasive but sadly died during a rare freeze in 1971. I’m sure all of those hillsides where I picked wild berries (and caught a few cases of poison oak along the way) have all been developed into homes.
Can I ask whether you used salted or unsalted butter? The version of the recipe which I have doesn’t specify. Given its European origin, salted would seem odd.
The version I have calls for 1/4 t. granulated salt in the recipe.
I almost always use unsalted.
