The father of all berry pies

I really have just been on a roll with these fruity desserts lately.  While for mother's day I made lemon cupcakes, I went with a berry pie for father's day as per the request of my wonderful father. Pumpkin and apple pies are the only types of pies I have experience making, so I was slightly worried about the idea of a berry pie.  I imagined a sloppy, juicy mess of berries that would seep through the crust to make it more of a cobbler instead of a pie (not that there is anything wrong with that, but my dad specifically requested a berry PIE).  Regardless, I decided to go with a fairly simple recipe (aka the first recipe listed on google): http://allrecipes.com/recipe/three-berry-pie/ 

I went all the way out to a local fruit stand to get the berries for this project (have to get the best for dad, right?).  However, apparently raspberries have been pretty popular so I literally got the last basket of raspberries.  The recipe calls for two cups raspberries, and I only had one cup because of this tragic raspberry shortage. Therefore,   the final berry amounts I used were one cup strawberry, two cups blueberries and two cup raspberries.  Although this was 1/2 cup less total berries than the recipe calls for, I am glad I did not use more! As you will soon see, my pie exploded a bit!

For this pie, there was no way I was going to trust Gertrude after the bread roll disaster of last week: (great recipe btw if you are interested http://allrecipes.com/recipe/light-wheat-rolls/ )

That does not look too bad, does it??? OH, wait. That was the one not BURNT roll.  Here are the bottoms of all the rest!

Not cool Gertrude.  I think you understand now why I was not going to trust Gertrude with this berry important project that was my pie.  I ended up using my parents' oven to bake my pie after I finished creating a beautiful lattice on top.  I realized aftwewards though, by creating a lattice I effectively reduced the volume of the pie that was allowed to hold berries (compared to if I had a full crust on top that prevented any spillage).  Therefore, some of the berries oozed out a little bit in the baking process to create a not super aesthetically pleasing pie.  Luckily, the pie was simple DIVINE! The cornstarch I added helped to thicken the berry filling to squelch all qualms I previously had about having a too-juicy pie.  The slices did not slice as well as I hoped (hence the lack of nice "pie slice" pictures), but this was definitely one of the best pieces of pie I have ever eaten- and believe me, I have eaten a lot of pie in my day.