Farm Recipe Green Tomato And Raspberry Pie

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If you are looking for a dessert entirely unique while holding true to baking up delicious, Farm Recipe Green Tomato and Raspberry Pie is not to be missed!

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slice of pie on a white plate

This recipe adapted from Tomatoes: A Country Garden Cookbook by Jesse Ziff Cool, 1994, Collins Publishers San Francisco
It was this recipe that prompted me to purchase the entire series of A Country Garden Cookbooks, and I have never looked back!

If you are looking for something entirely unique while holding true to delicious, you are in the right place. Farm Recipe Green Tomato and Raspberry Pie is a combination of curious ingredients that will not seem so bizarre once you taste it.

Assembled with an ethereal-like sour cream crust, this dessert employs old-school baking techniques found in old fashioned recipes such as this. Truly fresh and delicious and not to be missed!

basket of green tomatoes on a counter, with bowl

Farm Recipe Green Tomato And Raspberry Pie is assembled with a homemade sour cream pie crust. Now, if you’ve not tasted a sour cream pie crust, you haven’t lived to eat pie!

Back in the early days, and before I ever knew I liked to cook, I definitely knew I LOVED TO EAT! This recipe for a green tomato raspberry pie was among the very first bakes I tried on my own. I was 15 years old, and its success propelled me to rock star status with my Dad, the self proclaimed “pie aficionado” of our family.

To quote him “green tomato and raspberry pie was as if somebody extended rhubarb season.” And it’s true. Green tomato pie filling, combined with a fair amount of sugar, might fool a rhubarb lover in a blind taste test. Green tomatoes are a fruit that can swing either sweet or savory depending on how they’re prepared, and what is added to them.

corner of a pie

Nature and the change of seasons inspires me, especially when it comes to food. For me, August is the month of the tomato…

A former colleague of mine whose taste I always admired, shared with me a set of cookbooks she’d picked up at one of the larger, popular kitchen stores. We were sitting on her expansive front porch in Basking Ridge. It was a cool dusk in August.

Shadows were long and colors were already beginning to emerge on the oaks. The cicadas were so loud, our voices dinned as we ogled the photos after the turn of each page. The last of her garden’s zinnias were haphazardly arranged in a dented sugar maple bucket between us. And, scattered about were cookbooks. Lots of cookbooks.

a pie on a counter, with pie server

Before moving from New Jersey to Charleston, South Carolina, I had never heard of cooking with, much less eating, a green tomato.

The cookbook entitled ‘Tomatoes’ was of interest to me. Back at my house just a few miles up the road, Mom and I had picked the last of our ripened tomatoes the day before. We had two peach baskets filled with green tomatoes. If we set them in the sun on the porch, possibly they’d ripen. More than likely though, these would be thrown up back in the field for the deer.

Mildly intrigued by cooking and baking at this point in life, I read through several recipes. Almost all cookbooks boast recipes for tomatoes prepared with savory ingredients. Easy tomato pie is a good example. Vine-ripe tomatoes baked into a sweet homemade crust layered with cheddar cheese and fresh herbs. It’s mile high and makes a fantastic quick dinner with salad. And, it was in there. Yet something else was in there, too. An entire section for recipes to use green tomatoes. What was THIS?

I asked my coworker if she would mind bringing that book into work so I might make a copy of the southern tomato pie recipe. She agreed, and come Monday I found myself copying MANY of the recipes found within this book’s covers during my lunch break. Many of the recipes involved preserving green tomatoes in some form or another. There were green tomato preserve recipes, a green tomato-blueberry jam recipe, a method for green tomato and raspberry jalapeno jam, and a recipe for a very intriguing pie.

close up of slice of pie on a white plate

When combined with sugar and sweet red raspberries, green tomatoes bake up into a rhubarb-esque tart pie. The flavor profile is definitely more sweet than it is savory and nobody is the wiser as to what they are indeed tasting.

What captured my attention was not even the healthy ingredients going into this Farm Recipe Green Tomato Raspberry Pie, rather the sour cream pie crust it was all baked in. I’d NEVER seen or tasted a sour cream pie crust that I knew of. It was pale-ish in color, almost ethereal looking. How would THAT be to present to my family at the end of a nice homecooked meal? What reviews would my father and my brother have for me? A green tomato pie? Could I pull it off? Would it end up being the best tomato pie recipe ever?

Our likes and dislikes for food and certain types or styles of cooking is all in what we are brought up eating. My Mom cooked predominantly healthy recipes when we were kids. We lived on a farm with access to fresh water and fresh produce. That, and what we grew was free to us. The junk food at the local grocer required money. Money was something my parents didn’t have a lot of when David and I were small.

slice of pie on a white plate

Variations of this pie which I have baked and met success with include a green tomato and cherry pie, as well as a green tomato and apple pie. Scrumpdillyicious!

Mom focused on fresh dinner recipes. There was always a new salad recipe, and mid day recipes that would prove good for us kids for snacking. Often we would race in from outside to beg for a frozen treat. Mid-July, we would find our mom knee deep in a homemade raspberry jam. Her sterilized jars were ready to be pulled from a scalding water bath the moment we wanted ice cream. Often, we were redirected out the door, and instructed not to reemerge before dinner time.

Little did I know how much I would come to appreciate those fresh dinners and healthy snacks later in my life. Well, and our fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Another thing I missed was ever getting the titles of all the cookbooks my coworker had shared with me. It seemed like there was a whole mess of them. And after visiting Lancaster, Pennsylvania on a weekend trip and gobbling up the majority of an Amish green tomato pie, I KNEW I needed to find those cookbooks and bake this pie again. A Farm Recipe Green Tomato and Raspberry Pie.

Is green tomato raspberry pie a runny pie?

It can be, especially if you elect to use frozen raspberries. Of course, frozen is fine. I will however always promote fresh raspberries for this bake. If using frozen, a little trick to getting things to bind well is to increase the cornstarch by 1/4 to 1/2 cup. Refrigerating uneaten portions will also keep the pie from weeping and ruining your bottom crust. Nobody enjoys a soggy crust!

What is the best way to serve green tomato raspberry pie?

Pie and ice cream are still the oldest and best combination. This is a sweet, mildly tart pie with nuances of rhubarb. I enjoy it best with a vanilla ice cream, but I am sure most any pairing of flavors would work. Homemade and lightly sweetened whipped cream is also a favorite.

Try to slice into the pie while it’s still a bit warm. Thirty minutes out of the oven and cooling is long enough before cutting into it. Especially if serving with vanilla ice cream, there is always that “merger” of melty freeze and hot pie juices. You know what I’m talking about!

side view of slice of pie on a white plate
All images and text ©Jenny DeRemer for Not Entirely Average, LLC
slice of pie on a white plate
5 from 1 vote

Farm Recipe Green Tomato And Raspberry Pie

If you are looking for "unique" while holding true to baking up delicious, Farm Recipe Green Tomato and Raspberry Pie is not to be missed!
Prep: 1 hour
Cook: 50 minutes
Cooling: 30 minutes
Total: 2 hours 20 minutes
Servings: 8 servings
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Equipment

  • food processor or pastry cutter/dough blender
  • 10-inch pie plate
  • wax paper or parchment

Ingredients 

for the sour cream pie dough (for 1 double-crusted 10-inch pie)

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, cold and cut into 10 pieces
  • 2 ½ cups flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 8 tablespoons dairy sour cream

for the pie filling

  • 8 cups green tomatoes, cut into thin wedges or into 1-inch pieces
  • 2 pints raspberries
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • ¼ cup cornstarch, if you are using frozen raspberries, you may need additional cornstarch to prevent a runny pie
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter

Instructions 

prepare the sour cream pie crusts

  • To prepare the pie dough, cut the butter into 10 chunks with a knife. In a small bowl, combine the flour and salt. By hand or in a food processor, coarsely blend the butter, flour and salt.
  • Add the sour cream to the butter-flour mixture in small dollops. Blend until dough begins to come together. Turn onto a lightly floured board. 
  • Divide in half and form into 2 even balls. Set 1 ball aside. Flatten the other ball, dusting both sides lightly with flour to prevent sticking. 
  • Roll the dough to approximately 1/8-inch thickness. The outer perimeter should be approximately 2 inches beyond the edge of a 10-inch pie plate. Press dough into pie plate, leaving the edges uncut until you roll out the top crust.
  • Roll out the other ball of dough. Place between 2 pieces of waxed paper or a flour-dusted tea towel. Fold in half and store it with the lower crust in the refrigerator until the filling is prepared.

prepare the pie filling

  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  • In a large bowl, combine the tomatoes, berries, and lemon zest.
  • In a small bowl, combine the sugars, cornstarch and spices.
  • Toss all the ingredients together and heap the mixture into the lined pie plate. Dot with chunks of butter. Cover with top pastry crust, crimp edges together and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
  • Reduce heat to 350 degrees F. Bake for approximately 40 minutes longer or until the crust is lightly browned and when you test the middle of the pie with a toothpick, the tomatoes feel very soft.
  • Remove from the oven and cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or lightly sweetened homemade whipped cream.

Notes

Refrigerate any leftover portions of pie to prevent weeping. 
Light or dark brown sugar may be used in this method.
Do not omit or lessen the amount of sugars in this method, as the green tomatoes require every bit of it to defy what might otherwise taste bitter.
Frozen raspberries may be used in this method, however you may need to increase the amount of cornstarch from 1/4 cup to 1/2 as frozen berries will be juicier.
If you have tomatoes that have JUST begun to ripen and are still in the “slightly pink” stage, they are fine to slice and use for this method. I enjoy a healthy combination of firm pink and firm green tomatoes for this pie.

Nutrition

Serving: 1slice | Calories: 741kcal | Carbohydrates: 103g | Protein: 8g | Fat: 35g | Saturated Fat: 21g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 90mg | Sodium: 193mg | Potassium: 655mg | Fiber: 11g | Sugar: 58g | Vitamin A: 2240IU | Vitamin C: 74mg | Calcium: 111mg | Iron: 4mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Cooling: 30 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Servings: 8 servings
Calories: 741
Keyword: old fashioned pie recipe, raspberry pie, tomato pie
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About Jenny deRemer

I am a Charleston, South Carolina-based culinary novice, an ardent authority on all things travel, a designer by trade, and the creator of Not Entirely Average. I have a weakness for farmers' markets, delight in adventures way off the beaten path, enjoy documenting my many moods through photography, and have been known to conquer the occasional yard sale with gusto!

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