Raspberry Cream Pie

This was almost a fail.  And I thought, well, I haven't had a fail in a while, so that should at least make for a good blog post.  But at the 11th hour this pie pulled itself from the jaws of defeat.  It's from the Church Potluck cookbook I'm working through.  I made this on Saturday to bring to a friend's house for lunch on Sunday.  Good thing I didn't just think I could throw it together Sunday morning, then it would have been a fail for sure....

Raspberry Cream Pie
9" baked pie shell (if you use a GF pie shell then this is a GF recipe)
3 oz pkg black raspberry jello
1/4 cup sugar
dash salt
1 1/4 cups boiling water (measure before you boil, then you aren't trying to pour boiling water into a measuring cup...)
1 tsp lemon juice
10 oz pkg frozen raspberries
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar
3 oz cream cheese, softened
dash salt
1 tsp vanilla

Combine jello, sugar, 1 pinch of salt, boiling water, lemon juice, and frozen raspberries in a medium-sized bowl (separate frozen raspberries with fork).  Let set until jelly firm (ok this took several hours in the fridge.  The recipe in no way indicates this anywhere....).

Whip the cream and refrigerate until next step.  Combine cream cheese and powdered sugar (I used my Kitchen Aid but it wasn't really enough quantity and didn't combine well...I had to scrape often).  Add other pinch of salt and vanilla.  Beat well and fold into reserved whipped cream.

It doesn't say this, but you better put it back into the fridge, since it will be several hours until you are ready to continue....

In baked pie shell, put 1/2 of the whipped cream mixture, being careful to coat the sides of the pie shell to keep it crisp.

Then add half of raspberry mixture, then the remaining whipped cream mixture.

Finish with raspberry mixture (I didn't use all of it because it seemed precarious at best, since it was still rather runny at this point).

Chill several hours.  The best! (says the cookbook author...keep reading for reviews from actual people). 

Looks yummy, right?  Ok so at the part where you combine the berries, jello, etc, it gives you no clue at all as to how long that's going to take.  I left it on the counter for at least an hour, and the consistency was no different than when I started.  So I decided to refrigerate it and see what happens (which the recipe in no way indicates).  Every time I opened the fridge for any other purpose, I would stir it and see, and it still looked the same.  At supper I said to Steve something like "this pie is going to be a fail, what else can I throw into this already baked pie crust?"  And I was thinking of alternatives and funny things I could say about the recipe when I wrote it up.  Once supper was all cleaned up, I gave it one last chance, and stirred it, and what do you know?  It was more jelly-like.  Still kinda runny...I texted a picture of it to my friend that we would be eating with and told her to cross her fingers because I wasn't sure how this would be.  She was supportive.  By the time we cut into it today, it had gelled the way I would expect.  So, that was a close one.

Also, I secretly used a gluten free pie shell that I had in the freezer.  This way I can test.  Lots of people don't even like the pie crust, and I like to eat what I make.  So by my calculations, if half the people, and especially kids, don't eat the crust because it's not sweet and they just eat the filling, should I make or use a gluten-laden crust that means half the people plus me will not/cannot eat it?  Or should I make or use a gluten-free crust that means the same half of the people won't eat it, but then I can?  That math makes sense to me... My friend, despite having worked overnight last night, is a smart cookie who clued in to the fact that I was eating the dessert and asked about it.  But, she said it was good.  In fact, everybody ate their crust.  Which was good validation for me that I had made the right choice.  Everybody that ate it (which means Not Nathan because it has Real Berries) said it was really good.  A couple of the kids wanted a second piece, but there were 9 people and 8 pieces of pie.  So this is a surprise keeper, because I was prepared to write it off as a loss.