Buttery, flaky crust with a zesty and refreshing blueberry filling.
I used to hate blueberry pie. I thought it was too sweet, too runny, and tasted more like sugar than berries. Then I realized I had only had bad blueberry pie. My recipe uses a natural tasting filling with a minimal amount of added sugar. It also uses lemon to lighten it up and give it a bit of zing and cinnamon to bring it a bit of warmth.
Fruit pies can be tricky. Have you ever seen someone slice into a fruit pie and after you cut the first slice the empty slot in the pie dish immediately fills with filling juice? This also causes a “soggy bottom” as the Great British Baking Show would say. When you slice into your pie, you should have stable filling that’s not sloshing around.
Here are the factors to consider in avoiding a runny filling…
- Sugar. By using a lot of granulated sugar, the berries let off more juice making the pie runny. Too much sugar also makes the pie way too sweet so you can’t taste the natural blueberry flavor.
- Thickener. I used flour and a smidge of cornstarch in this recipe. I don’t use tapioca starch or some of the other thickeners because I don’t want to have to keep another random ingredient on hand. Flour also doesn’t mess with the texture of the filling. The only complaint about flour as a thickener is that occasionally you’ll get a little clump of flour at the top of your pie that didn’t completely incorporate into the filling. It’s only an aesthetic problem … it doesn’t effect the taste, so it doesn’t bother me.
- Water content. Frozen blueberries add way too much water to the pie so definitely splurge for the fresh berries. Within fresh berries, you can have drastically different amounts of water in your berries. The best way to control the amount of water you’re adding to your pie is by weighing your berries. To have the correct ratio of sugar, thickener, and blueberries that I’ve used in this recipe, you need 800g of blueberries which is about 5 1/2 to 6 cups of blueberries. If you don’t have a scale and forgot to weigh them before leaving the store, there is a way to eyeball how much water content your blueberries have. If they are juicy to the taste and on the larger side, they have more water so use 5 1/2 cups. If they are smaller and don’t taste as juicy, use 6 cups.
- Cooling. This is the hardest part…wait until the pie is completely cool to slice into it. If you cut into it while it’s still warm, it will not set correctly.
Follow those couple of steps and your pie should be perfectly stable! Another tip I want to point out is when making your lattice top, don’t make the strips too wide. If they’re too wide or too thick, it is harder to get your fork through so then you end up pushing down on the filling and the filling squirts out the sides of your slice of pie. It’s a small problem but worth mentioning!
And obviously you’ll need to serve it with vanilla ice cream on top!
Enjoy and let me know how it turns out for you!
Classic Blueberry Pie
Ingredients
Filling:
- 800g fresh (not frozen) blueberries (about 5½ - 6 cups or 3 pints)*
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
Crust:
- 2½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoon granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 16 Tablespoons salted butter, cold and cubed
- 6 Tablespoons cold water
- Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with 1 Tablespoon milk
- Coarse Sugar (optional)
Instructions
Filling:
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Mix all the filling ingredients together. Make sure the blueberries are completely dry so that you're not adding extra water to the filling.
- Refrigerate while you make the crust.
Crust:
- Mix flour, sugar, and salt together with a spatula.
- Using a pastry cutter or 2 knives, cut the cold butter into the flour until it resembles coarse meal. The butter chunks should be as small or smaller than green peas.
- Mix in the cold water and stir with a fork until the mixture is raggedy.
- Transfer dough to a floured work surface and gently work the dough together with your hands. Split the dough into two equal pieces. Put one piece in the fridge while you work with the other.
- Flatten the dough into a disc and roll the dough out with a floured rolling pin into a 12-inch circle. As you are rolling the dough, turn the dough circle a couple times to make sure it is not sticking to the counter and add more flour to your work surface as needed.
- Transfer the 12-inch dough circle to a 9-inch pie dish. To transfer the dough without tearing it, loosely wrap the pie dough around your rolling pin and then unroll it over your pie dish.
- Trim the edges so there is only about ½ inch of overhang.
- Pour the filling into the crust. Try to get the flour as evenly distributed as possible.
Lattice Top Crust:
- Roll out the refrigerated second piece of pie crust into a 12 inch circle.
- Cut the circle into ½ inch wide strips. You don't want the strips to thick or it'll be difficult to get your fork through the top crust without smushing the filling.
- Picking up every other strip of pie crust arrange the strips vertically.
- For the first horizontal strip, pick up every other vertical strip and set them to the side. Lay down the first horizontal strip. Replace the vertical strips.
- For the following horizontal strips, fold every other vertical strip (alternating from the ones you picked up last time) over the last horizontal strip. Place the next horizontal strip down and then replace the folded vertical strips back over.
- Once you are done with the basket weave, trim the strips of dough so they are even with the bottom pie crust.
- Crimp the edges by first folding the overhang of the bottom crust over the edges of the top crust, and then pinching the edges between your thumb and first finger.
- Liberally brush the lattice and pie crust edges with egg wash. You don't need all the egg wash but use more than you probably think you should. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
- Place the pie on a baking sheet.
- Bake for 25 minutes and then with the pie still in the oven drop the temperature on the oven to 375°F and bake for another 30-35 minutes. If the lattice top starts browning too quickly, cover the pie with aluminum foil. I covered mine after about 40 minutes in the oven.
- Cool on a wire rack for 4-6 hours.
Store covered in the refrigerator for a week.
Notes
*To have the correct ratio of sugar, thickener, and blueberries that I've used in this recipe, you need 800g of fresh blueberries which is about 5½ to 6 cups of blueberries. If you don't have a scale and forgot to weigh them before leaving the store, there is a way to eyeball how much water content your blueberries have. If they are juicy to the taste and on the larger side, they have more water so use 5½ cups. If they are smaller and don't taste as juicy, use 6 cups.
So glad this recipe came out today – because I have the weekend to try it!!!! And, because I got to try a slice I know it tastes even better than it looks!!!!
Keep those recipes coming!!!!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Let me know how it turns out!