Stitches, Dishes & Stories: The Raven (Blackberry Hand Pies Recipe With Homemade Chocolate Blackberry Jam)

Set on a dreary midnight in a lonely chamber, this edition of Stitches, Dishes & Stories features Edgar Allan Poe’s epic poem The Raven. For the occasion, I made hand pies with a chocolate blackberry jam filling and crocheted a feather bookmark.

Welcome to this installment of Stitches, Dishes & Stories! (You can find the first installment here, the second here, the third here, and the fourth here.) This is a series on An Edible Mosaic where I choose a classic work of literature and use it as the inspiration to make a crocheted item and a recipe. If you’re a reader, crocheter, or home cook, we can nerd out together over timeless stories, yarn we love, and good food and drink to go with it.

The Story: The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more.”

– Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

Although this poem is set in December, its dark, melancholic, and eerie vibe says October to me, so I’m taking the creative liberty of sharing it now. This poem takes me back to ninth-grade English, when our absolutely brilliant, highly animated teacher read it aloud to the class with more passion than I’ve ever heard anyone convey in a reading either before or since. The underlying emotion present in the written word portrayed through his voice was palpable in the room.

Depicting the disconsolate narrator’s state of mourning following the death of his lover, Lenore, this poem shows the descent into madness that grief can elicit. And of course the mysterious, relentless raven, a symbolic physical manifestation of the realization of death’s permanence, shows that emotion trumps all logic when you’re grieving. Nevermore.

The Stitch: Crochet Feather in a Moody, Plumy, Wine-y Color Scheme

This stanza mentioning a black plume shows the peak of the narrator’s angst…

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

– Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

For this theme, I crocheted a feather (although it’s technically a leaf pattern! Again, creative liberty, lol), which makes a beautiful bookmark. It’s a quick and easy crochet project, and works up in less than two hours.

The Yarn

In the poem, Poe mentions the colors purple, violet, and black. I didn’t want just solid purple or solid black yarn; I wanted a dark, plumy-hued tonal or variegated yarn.

I looked through my yarn stash and didn’t find a single skein that spoke to me for this project, so I headed to a yarn store called Entangled Local Yarn Shop in Falls Church, Virginia. There I found a lovely selection, and settled on a fingering weight/sock yarn from Amber Waves KS that’s a soft, high-twist blend of Merino wool, cashmere, and nylon. The color is called “Behave Myself or What?” and it’s deeply moody with base colors of smoky charcoal and crushed black, along with dark plum and rich burgundy hues. Exactly what I was looking for!

I will say, the only thing I wish I could have done differently is use a thinner yarn (such as lace-weight yarn or crochet thread) instead of fingering weight/sock weight for a thinner bookmark. However, after quite a bit of searching for just the right yarn color in the perfect weight, I decided that color was more important. And as far as the color scheme goes, this nails the vision I had for this project.

Crochet Feather Pattern (Makes a Lovely Bookmark!)

For this project, I followed @OlgaPoltava’s pattern for a lacy leaf crochet bookmark on YouTube. It’s a great tutorial! If you can find crochet thread available in the color you want, I definitely recommend going with Olga’s suggestion.

The Dish: Handheld Mini Blackberry Pie Recipe With Homemade Blackberry Chocolate Jam and From-Scratch, All-Butter Flaky Pie Crust

With no mention of food in the poem, I had complete freedom to make anything I wanted. My mind immediately went to the raven itself. Blackbird pie if you will, but sweet. And not nearly as gruesome an image as the 18th-century English nursery rhyme, “Sing a Song of Sixpence”, conjures with the phrase “blackbird pie”. Sweet and tangy blackberries, with their glossy, deep-purple/blackish color will do nicely as a stand-in for blackbirds. And then I got to thinking that I didn’t want just a basic mini blackberry pie recipe. No, this should be special. I decided to add chocolate to the berry filling.

Now, if you’ve ever had chocolate-coated berries or a fruity chocolate bar, I think you’ll understand the appeal. The bittersweet flavor of dark chocolate beautifully contrasts the bright, sweet/tart fruitiness of ripe blackberries. Additionally, the fruity, floral, earthy notes of blackberry enhance cocoa’s naturally fruity flavor. And of course, flaky, buttery pastry crust makes the whole experience even better.

Mini Blackberry Pie Ingredients

Instructions

Step 1: Make the Blackberry Chocolate Jam

1. Cook. Add the blackberries, sugar, vinegar, and salt to a 3-quart pot over medium heat. Cover, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover, turn the heat down to medium-low, and continue cooking until thickened, about 5 minutes more, stirring frequently (TIP: don’t thicken it too much; it will thicken more as it cools).
2. Add the finishing touches. Remove from the heat and stir in the chopped chocolate and vanilla extract until smooth.
3. Cool. Cool completely, at least 2 hours. (TIP: If you have the time, let this chill in the fridge overnight before making the hand pies. This does two things: 1) allows the jam to fully thicken, and 2) keeps the butter in the crust cold until the moment it goes into the oven for the flakiest pastry.)

Step 2: Make the Pastry Crust

For step-by-step photo instructions and a recipe video showing how to make homemade pie crust, please see my pie crust guide.

1. Make the pie dough. Whisk together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the butter with a fork, a pastry cutter, 2 butter knives, or your fingertips. It should look crumbly, with some pieces of butter the size of small peas. Drizzle the water in a little at a time, mixing as you go (you can use a fork to mix, but mixing with your fingertips works best here). Add just enough water so it comes together to form a ball of dough (you may need more or less water).
2. Chill the pie dough. Shape the dough into a ball, flatten it slightly into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until chilled, at least 30 minutes (or up to 3 days).

Step 3: Assemble and Bake

1. Prep. Preheat the oven to 400F.
2. Roll out the dough and stamp out circles. Working from the center out, roll the dough out to a rectangle about 3 to 4 mm thick (about 1/8-inch). Stamp out the dough into 3-inch circles, gathering the scrapes and re-rolling the dough as needed (you should get 12 dough circles).
3. Assemble the hand pies. Add a slightly heaping 1 tablespoon of jam to the center of each dough circle. Dip your finger in water and lightly wet half of the outer circle, and then fold the dry portion of dough over onto itself to form a half-moon, pressing to help seal the edges. Arrange the pies spaced evenly apart on 2 large baking trays. Crimp the edges with a fork, and use a paring knife to poke 3 small slits in the top of each so that steam can vent (and it looks a little bit like a bird’s footprint!).
4. Chill the assembled hand pies. Pop the trays into the freezer for 15 minutes. After that, lightly brush the tops of the pastries with egg wash and sprinkle on the turbinado sugar.
5. Bake. Bake until golden, about 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the trays once halfway through.

Storage and Reheating

Cool to room temperature, and then layer the mini pies in an airtight container between pieces of parchment paper. Store at room temperature for up to 2 days, in the fridge for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

To reheat, thaw if frozen. Reheat in a 350F oven for about 10 to 15 minutes or in a 325F air fryer for about 5 minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

More Creepy Recipes That Would Go Well With The Raven by Poe

• Black Cocoa Cake (aka Black Velvet Cake)
• Bloody Halloween Dessert Dip
• Cobweb Halloween Cookies
• Poison Apples