Blueberry Pie
Fresh fruit in a pie is a true seasonal treat. Blueberry pie can be made with frozen or fresh berries, but fresh, in-season blueberries cannot be beat. This pie has a thick and juicy blueberry filling, that is sweet with a touch of cinnamon and the natural slight tartness of the fresh blueberries.
I’ve made this for picnics and parties and have been repeatedly told this appears to be a bakery-made pie but the taste is even better. The freshness and taste cannot be beat by any store bought pie.
What Do I Need?
If you are bringing this to someone else or a party, I suggest using disposable pie tins. Then you don’t have to worry about getting your pan back and can more easily leave behind the leftovers. Plus, when everyone starts licking the bottom of the pan, no worries!
The main tools you will need are a good saucepan, 1 to 2 quarts in size. I recently upgraded my saucepans to stainless and I looooove them. Also, a good size mixing bowl to mix the entire filling. I use stainless for those also.
When you are rolling out your pie crust, you also need a good rolling pin. As I mention in my pie crust recipe, I prefer a French style rolling pin without handles.
Speaking of…you also need pie crust! Prepare and fridge my Flaky Pie Crust at least 4 hours ahead of time.
What I Use
Tips and Tricks
In Pastry School, we learned to make this pie using frozen fruit. As the frozen fruit thaws, you strain and reserve the juice that runs out of the fruit. Since we don’t get that from fresh fruit, the first step is to make a blueberry juice. This is simple. Heat some berries over medium heat, press them with a spoon as they get warm and cook down. Then run it all through a fine mesh sieve and voila, blueberry juice. You need a total of 125 grams (about 1/2 cup) of juice, so you will add enough water to get that total amount.
This method is called the Cooked Juice method. Because, you know, you cook juice. Brilliant!
You will be using cornstarch to thicken the juice. You don’t want to add cornstarch directly to the entire mixture, so you will make a slurry with the cornstarch and water before adding it to other ingredients. This prevents the cornstarch from clumping. The juice, sugar and cornstarch slurry are heated together and whisked until they are thick. It will look cloudy and stay the same consistency for a minute or two, then suddenly get very thick.
Then you will add the next set of ingredients and mix. As it gets warmer and smoother, it will also get clearer.
Beginning of mixture…
…And its ready.
This thick, sweetened blueberry juice will bind together the remaining fresh blueberries. While this is thickened with the cornstarch already, the cornstarch will continue to cook and thicken the mixture during baking. That is one reason this pie, and Cooked Juice pies in general, are baked at a high temperature of 425 F.
Next. pour the entire filling into a pie tin prepared with the bottom half of the pie crust. Do not get any filling on the edges of the bottom pie crust, it will make it harder to bind the top and bottom crusts. If the top and bottom crusts are not closed and well crimped, then as the mixture cooks it may bubble out and burn the crust in that area and lose juicy filling.
Roll out the top pie crust. Before you place it on, use an egg wash on the edges of the bottom crust to help bind them together. Lay the top crust over the pie tin. Cut off the excess, cut a decent sized vent into the crust, and brush it with egg wash. The vent is important and it must be large enough to fully let out the steam. If the pie isn’t properly vented, then steam will build up on the inside and cause a blow out of any weakness you have in the seam of the top and bottom pie crust. Then once again, burning and less juice.
Also, you will want to crimp your pie to seal the top and bottom together. One easy way to do this is to use a fork and push down all around the pie edge. You can also crimp it, as I attempted to. If you crimp it, you will want to refrigerate the pie before baking. Otherwise the pretty crimping will wilt and lay flat by the time you pull it from the oven. It is still sealed but loses the cool look of it. I honestly have not had a pie crust stay standing up perfectly crimped yet. #Bakinggoals
With any excess pie crust you cut off, you can always cut out some shapes and place them on top for decoration. For a picnic last month, I added some leaves to the top of the pie and it was super cute.
Once your pie is fully cooled, time to slice into it and enjoy it. You can always warm it to eat it, but making sure it is fully cooled before slicing into it will ensure it sets properly.
When you slice and serve the pie, it should only have a small amount of the juices that run out. If your filling is very runny, most likely the cornstarch either didn’t cook in long enough to thicken properly in the first cooking in the sauce pan - or - the internal temperature of the pie didn’t get high enough. This is usually caused by one of 2 things.
First possibility is that your oven isn’t really baking at 425 and you should get an oven thermometer to make sure the internal temperature of the oven is actually what you set it to.
The other possibility is you didn’t bake it long enough to get the proper temperature to totally thicken the filling. This usually is because the crust is well browned, so it looks like its ready and you remove it from the oven. But it didn’t cook long enough to set the inside. Peak into the vent of your pie and if the filling isn’t bubbling a lot, then cover the crust with foil so it doesn’t overbrown while you let the pie bake a little longer to get the filling to set.
Fresh Blueberry PieYield: 8Prep time: 20 MinCook time: 1 HourTotal time: 1 H & 20 MSweet and juicy blueberries in a perfectly flaky pie crustIngredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 F.
- Place the 750 g of blueberries in a large bowl.
- Add first portion of blueberries (200g) to a saucepan and simmer on medium heat. Use a spoon to press down on blueberries as they soften.
- Once the blueberries have cooked down, about 5-7 minutes, strain the mixture into measuring cup. Discard the skins and pieces that remain in the strainer.
- Add enough water, from the 75 g of water, to the strained blueberry juice to get a total of 125 g of liquid (about 1/2 cup). Discard remaining water.
- Add first sugar (58 g) to the blueberry juice and whisk together.
- Combine the 64g of cold water and the cornstarch. Mix to make a slurry.
- Add the blueberry juice mix and cornstarch slurry to a saucepan.
- Whisk continuously over medium heat until thickened.
- Add the second sugar (138 g), lemon juice, salt, and cinnamon and stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat.
- Pour the cooked juice over the blueberries in the large bowl. Gently mix with a rubber spatula, careful not to break the blueberries.
- Roll out half of the prepared pie crust to 1/8" thick, and cover a pie tin with the rolled crust. Leave the edges hanging over the pie tin for now.
- Pour blueberry mixture carefully into pie crust - careful not to get any juice on the edge of the crust.
- Brush egg wash onto the edge of the pie crust - to help seal the top and bottom crust together.
- Roll out the other half of the pie crust to 1/8" thick, and place on the top of the pie. Gently press down to seal it to the bottom crust.
- Cut around the pie with kitchen shears to trim off excess pie crust.
- Use a fork to crimp the top and bottom crust together, or use a pinching crimp around. Epicurious has a good video on how to do this.
- Cut out a vent - either using a knife to cut a circle or use a smaller cookie cutter. The vent should be at least 1-2 inches in diameter.
- Brush the egg wash all over the top crust., careful to not overdo it so the eggwash collects and pools around the edges.
- Bake pie for 45 - 60 minutes until golden brown and inside is bubbling. Wrap foil around the edges if they brown too fast.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 F.
- Place the 750 g of blueberries in a large bowl.
- Add first portion of blueberries (200g) to a saucepan and simmer on medium heat. Use a spoon to press down on blueberries as they soften.
- Once the blueberries have cooked down, about 5-7 minutes, strain the mixture into measuring cup. Discard the skins and pieces that remain in the strainer.
- Add enough water, from the 75 g of water, to the strained blueberry juice to get a total of 125 g of liquid (about 1/2 cup). Discard remaining water.
- Add first sugar (58 g) to the blueberry juice and whisk together.
- Combine the 64g of cold water and the cornstarch. Mix to make a slurry.
- Add the blueberry juice mix and cornstarch slurry to a saucepan.
- Whisk continuously over medium heat until thickened.
- Add the second sugar (138 g), lemon juice, salt, and cinnamon and stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat.
- Pour the cooked juice over the blueberries in the large bowl. Gently mix with a rubber spatula, careful not to break the blueberries.
- Roll out half of the prepared pie crust to 1/8" thick, and cover a pie tin with the rolled crust. Leave the edges hanging over the pie tin for now.
- Pour blueberry mixture carefully into pie crust - careful not to get any juice on the edge of the crust.
- Brush egg wash onto the edge of the pie crust - to help seal the top and bottom crust together.
- Roll out the other half of the pie crust to 1/8" thick, and place on the top of the pie. Gently press down to seal it to the bottom crust.
- Cut around the pie with kitchen shears to trim off excess pie crust.
- Use a fork to crimp the top and bottom crust together, or use a pinching crimp around. Epicurious has a good video on how to do this.
- Cut out a vent - either using a knife to cut a circle or use a smaller cookie cutter. The vent should be at least 1-2 inches in diameter.
- Brush the egg wash all over the top crust., careful to not overdo it so the eggwash collects and pools around the edges.
- Bake pie for 45 - 60 minutes until golden brown and inside is bubbling. Wrap foil around the edges if they brown too fast.
Let me know if you enjoy this pie! Cooked Juice pies are my new favorite style of fruit pie!!!
