Berry Nutella Pie

One nice thing about finally having an oven is being able to experiment with baking again. It’s been a while since I could make hubby something that wasn’t cooked in a skillet or crockpot and it is sooo refreshing. In celebration of that fact, the first thing I did was make this pie. It was kind of impromptu and I didn’t have a plan going in to it, but it turned out really good!

So a few things:

You can use whatever fruit you like that you think will go well with the filling. I used strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries, but you could use peaches, kiwi, anything you like, really.

I put a smidge on lemon and lime zest just because I had some and I think it added a nice pop of flavor to the pie. If that’s not your thing, by all means, feel free to leave it out!

I was trying to make the pie a bit reasonable health-wise and chose to use Neufchatel cheese, cream cheese’s lighter cousin as well as the Greek yogurt. If you really wanted to go ham in the health department, you could make your own shell using whole wheat flour, nuts or replacing butter with oil or something. Just google it; I’m sure you’ll find an alternative that works for you. In my case, I really wanted that pie crust flavor and flaky consistency. Also, I hate making pie shells.

On the other hand, if you don’t give two figs how healthy this pie is, I would without a doubt recommend you use a combination of full fat cream cheese, freshly whipped cream and double the Nutella. As a garnish, it might look nice to dust a little powdered sugar on top right before serving.

Either way you go, this is a lovely, refreshing pie that at the end of the day has fruit in it, so it’s healthy…basically.

Here we go!

Ingredients:

1 Pie shell or similar

8 ozs. Neufchatel cheese

1 c. fat-free vanilla yogurt

¼ c. Nutella

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. lemon zest, optinal

1/4 tsp. lime zest, optional

A squirt of honey (optional, for added sweetness)

2 c. sliced strawberries

½ c. fresh, whole raspberries

½ c. fresh whole blackberries

½ c. fresh, whole blueberries

Powdered sugar for garnish (optional)

Method:

1. Bake the pie shell according to package instructions.
2. While the shell is baking, make your filling. Combine the cream cheese, yogurt, zests, vanilla extract, Nutella and honey in a food processor until smooth.
3. Remove the pie shell when it’s golden brown and let it cool. Once cool, spread a layer of filling on the bottom of the shell.
4. Top the filling with a generous layer of mixed fruit.
5. Put more filling and then arrange the last layer of fruit on top in a way that would make granny proud.
6. Let the pie chill in the fridge for about 4 hours or until it’s not jiggly if you shake it a bit. You could make this the night before serving to be sure it’s totally set.
7. Enjoy!

Storage Instructions:

Store any leftover pie, filling and fruit in the fridge, covered. It should last a few days, probably longer than it takes to eat it all. You could even make or buy some granola to assemble really decadent parfaits with any filling and fruit leftovers!