Bumbling Into Pie Season

The Bumbleberry Pie is a classic improvisation with a colorful history

Bumbleberry is a mixed berry pie that often contains apples or rhubarb.

Coming down from the pinnacle of the Memorial Day Fruit Pie Contest in Boalsburg, I had pie brain. It was all I could think of. I saw a lot of pies that day—28 of them—and they all made me hungry. A few days later, my sister Mary and I were in Belleville and purchased some rhubarb and first-of-the-season strawberries, so I moved closer to having a pie in my future.

Darlene Bachmann receives and organizes the pies that are submitted to the contest on Memorial Day in Boalsburg, 2025.

But then we got busy, and pie-making never happened. Instead, we visited our cousins in Ohio and went to the Strip District in Pittsburgh. Then it was time to pack to go to the shore. I made the pie crust dough and loaded it up with the random contents of the fridge and drove to Stone Harbor. But a lot of those sweet strawberries were consumed en route. I had blueberries and blackberries on hand, and I thought a combination pie would be a good option.

Mark Twain said long ago, “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

That can be said of many recipes—old ideas with new variations. When I googled rhubarb-berry pie, I was led to Bumbleberry Pie, and then I went deep into that rabbit hole since I had been to the charming resort town of Springdale a few months ago. It doesn’t look like this anymore, except for the rocks.

Springdale, Utah in the 1950’s

The Bumbleberry Pie was first created and named in the mid-1960s. Constance Madsen and her husband, Julius, ran the tourist destination Grandma’s Kitchen in Springdale, Utah, just outside Zion National Park. One day, a tourist bus poured in hungry for pie, but Constance didn’t have enough of any one fruit to make her classics. But necessity is the mother—or grandmother-of invention, and Constance whipped up a pie that is now quite famous.

Thanks to her creative family team, she not only developed a memorable pie but also inspired a legend about the origins of the berries, adding a touch of whimsy to the dish. The savvy proprietors even encouraged their grandchildren to sing a song about Bumbleberry Valley to the customers. It was a marketing stroke of genius. You can read or listen to the whole engaging story by Utah’s NPR affiliate station KUER here.

Grandma Madsen was a hospitality pioneer, able to make do with what she had on hand to create something new. She never shared her top-secret recipe, and Stan Smith, who bought the business in 1972, is now the custodian/promoter of the property, the recipe, and the legend.

When I got to the beach with fewer strawberries than I needed to make my Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, I did what Constance Madsen did long ago. I bumbled together a tasty and bright mix of rhubarb, strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries to make a delicious pie. Now I need a marketing team to come up with a legend. Double Nines?

Rhubarb and mixed berries for the pie and the crust that I made at home and brought to the beach. Without a rolling pin at the Cozy Beach House, a chilled bottle of wine was handy for rolling out the dough. And I was delighted to find a proper pie pan.

Bumbleberry Pie By the Sea

(based on the recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Pie by Florence Fabricant of the NYT)

FILLING

· 3 cups rhubarb cut into one-inch pieces, about one pound

· 1 cup strawberry halves

· 1 cup blueberries

· 1 cup blackberries

· 1 cup sugar

· 3 tablespoons cornstarch

· 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

CRUST

· 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

· ½ teaspoon salt

· ¾ teaspoon raw sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

· 15 tablespoons unsalted butter (almost 2 sticks), very cold and cut into 1/4-inch cubes

· ½ cup ice-cold water

· 1 tablespoon half and half or milk

· 1 teaspoon raw sugar

1. Prepare the pastry: combine the flour, salt, and sugar in a Cuisinart bowl and cut in the butter. Drizzle in the water, using as little as possible and pulsing the knife blade quickly. Gather two-thirds of the dough and wrap it tightly with plastic wrap. Do the same with the remaining third. Flatten into disks. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. When the dough is chilled, roll out the larger piece and line a nine-inch pie pan.

2. Combine rhubarb and all the berries in a bowl. Mix sugar and cornstarch together and fold gently into the fruit. Allow to macerate for 15 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 425° degrees.

4. Spoon fruit into pastry shell and dot with butter. Roll out the remaining pastry, cut it into strips three-quarters of an inch wide, and weave a lattice to cover the pie. Seal, trim, and crimp the edges. Brush the lattice with milk and sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

5. Bake in a preheated oven for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 350°F and bake for 40 minutes longer, until the pastry has browned and the filling begins to bubble. Let the pie cool completely before serving, ideally for at least 3 hours or up to overnight to set the filling.

I made the pie the day before serving it and it set up and sliced very nicely. Serve with vanilla ice cream if you have it.

Bumbleberry Pie By the Sea—the Breakfast of Champions!