I want to make a blueberry pie but have never done it before (well I have as a little girl with my Grandma). I was hoping to go to the farmers' market today to try and get some wild blueberries for it.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
lesupersteph
Nov 19, 2006 05:57PM
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Where do you live? In most places in the US, blueberries are long out of season (they're a summer fruit). You really don't need a fancy recipe to make a good blueberry pie--I use 4 cups fruit, about 3/4 cup of sugar, and a couple TB of instant ("MInute") tapioca. You can also add a little lemon juice. Toss together, let sit for 10-15 minutes, then put into your crust and bake. Mmm! Any basic cookbook will have a similar recipe.
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I agree with dixieday2 but a little more specifically - blueberries freeze beautifully, so use them. Let 'em thaw, and in a nice frying pan (10-12 inches or smaller if it's deeper) heat it up with some fresh lemon juice, some sugar and/or honey, a touch of vanilla and cinnamon, if you want. Stir if the minute tapioca and survey the results for taste and texture and adjust as needed. Before you close your pie shell or fold over the top, if it's a galette, dot it with some butter which makes it Very Nice. Takes about a half hour to bake at 350 and be sure to set a drip catcher underneath to protect your oven.
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rcallner, do you cook this and then add it to a pie shell? Every time I have used frozen berries, I end up with a watery mess and this sounds like a great solution for a winter pie!!!
I also love the blueberry lattice pie from Bon Apetit, I'm not sure it is on the site but I've had great results with it.
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It is worth seeeking out the tiny wild frozen berries from Maine, Canada, northern New York State, Vermont, New Hampshire etc. They go into a pie in teh frozen state beautifully and are never watery.
Baked and unbaked. My M-I-L's Berries and Cream Pie
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/cgrover/P8130028.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/...
These truly teeny tiny berries and do not have enough water in them to make them mushy.
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Hi 4chowpups. Yes, I cook the fruit first (actually that works nicely for a lot of fruit pies) in a good frying type pan, so this technique allows me to both guage the consistency before the moment you cut into the pie (too late) and is also less time in the oven. I've had good luck with making pies galette style, lining a pie pan with parchment paper, laying down the crust with a cookie bottom, spooning the cooked filling in, and then folding the crust around the edges with an open top. Way less likely to goosh over. I also brush the top with water and sprinkle with sugar at the end.
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Sounds great. If I make a pie, how much cooking time do you cut back?
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Trader Joe's frozen blueberries are stellar and make great pies--the regular, not the wild blueberries, which have less flavor to me. rcallner is dead on with the cinnamon and especially the drip catcher! Blueberry pie DOTH runneth over.
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I've heard the best bluebery pies have half wild and half domestic blueberries.
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Don't make the mistake I made when I got pearl tapioca to use as thickening for fruit pies. I'm not sure what Minute Tapioca is, but tapioca *starch*--very fine powder, like cornstarch--works beautifully. The other thing I've found is that berries (blue, rasp, black et al.) are so juicy that your bottom crust will get soggy quick. So eat your pie fast! (Besides, it's so good when it's still warm--say, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream--that you won't want to wait.)
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I'm new to this site and am supposed to be working right now but....
Soggy bottoms - if you don't want to blind bake, try covering the bottom with a nice cookie like a pecan sandie or a little leftover cake or even granola or such - it adds a little more flavor and keeps your bottom from going to total goo.
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great idea about the cookies/granola . . . glad you found the site!
I tend to do blueberry pies with no more than a sprinkling of sugar - about 2 T
a squeeze of lemon and a dash of cinnamon, along with tapioca starch or corn starch if that's all I have. I don't like a very thick consistency.
I've used tapioca flour, but I can't remember how the proportion changed with that...
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Cranberry goes well with blueberry, too. I made a "Scandanavian Berry Pie" that was cranberries, blueberries, and a sour cream crust. Yum. I used frozen blueberries found at Whole Foods.
I've used tapioca in tiny pearl form interchangably with tapioca starch, and they both worked equally well as thickeners for me.
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BLUEBERRY PIE - Serves 6 to 8
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
6 cups blueberries
4-1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons flour, and more as needed
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 10-inch pie shell, baked
Melt the butter in a large saucepan set over medium-low heat. Add 3 cups of the blueberries and the lemon juice and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until blueberries release their juice. Stir in the flour, salt, and sugars, and simmer until the mixture thickens, about 8 to 10 minutes. If it does not thicken sufficiently, make a slurry of 1 tablespoon flour and a little of the cooking liquid and stir it into the mixture.
Remove the blueberry mixture from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Fold in the remaining 3 cups of blueberries, pour into the baked pie shell, and let rest at least 15 minutes before serving. Just serve neat, or with creme fraiche, fresh whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream.
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Yes indeed. What you have after folding the uncooked berries into the cooled, thickened compote is what I call Blueberries Squared. You can pour it into a baked pie or tart shell, or a whole bunch of baked individual tartlet shells (fill only as many as you're going to serve right away), or spoon it over vanilla ice cream. Glorious stuff.
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If you can find the Down East cookbook from Maine, it has a great recipe for a blueberry pie. You have to eat it from a bowl because the blueberries are juicy and runneth over, but it's truly wonderful... and easy.
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