It's Pie O'Clock !
This one is a beast of work, but well worth it.
Blueberry pie can be very "one note" - good, but each bite is sticky sweet with not much excitement, and the wet filling make most crusts dull and soggy, or at the least, wet-cardboard-y.
My version has many different layers of sweet, spice, crunch, zing, zest, and isn't gummy. I'd call this an "advanced level" pie, for those truly serious about their pie. Amateurs should quietly walk away now - sorry.
Here we go...
First, prepare a butter crust.
Cut up 1 1/2 sticks of very cold unsalted butter (6oz) into 1/4" cubes,
In a food processor with a sharp blade, throw in..
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 of the butter cubes.
Process this until the chunks are mostly gone, about 30 seconds of pulsing.
Add the second 1/2 of the butter cubes, and pulse about 10-20 times so that there are still some pea-sized chunks of butter remaining in the flour.
Dump the flour mixture in a bowl and drizzle with 6 tablespoons cold water as you mix and blend with a fork, cutting and mixing in the water until 80% of the dough just starts to adhere, but there is still 20% dry flour in the bowl. You may need at add another tablespoon or so as is required, but don't go beyond the 80% of shaggy dough, and certainly you don't want it to be wet looking or stuck like a ball of bread dough.. no no no.
Use your hand to mix and compress the flour to incorporate some of the dryer flour into the shaggy stuff, and then dump onto a large cutting board and fraisage until it is all one nice adhered clump of dough. Form into a nice disk about 1" think, wrap in plastic and put in fridge OVERNIGHT. Don't cheat.
Wait, what? don't know how to fraisage? Just plug that fancy word into YouTube since there are lots of videos explaining the technique. My pastry instructor at the CIA (who was Swiss) would say "you've got to schmeer it". May of his instructions started with "sch". So, use the heel of your hand, working from one side of the dough, and schmeer it. The water and butter will stick the flour together and make a nice little flat bit of dough. Set this aside in a pile and continue to "schmeer" the rest, setting aside the wafers as you "schmeer" them. This is the difference between fraisage and kneading.. with kneading you are manipulating the entire dough over and over.. but for fraisage you only make a single "schmeer" to bring the dough into a flaky layer once, they set this aside and work on the remainder of the dough. Once you have "schmeered" all the dough, pack together and form the layers/wafers into a disk 1" thick, wrap and refrigerate.. but remember.. OVERNIGHT!
Now, let's make the strudel topping.
Into your food processor, put the following..
1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1 stick of cold butter, cut up into 1/4" cubes.
Pulse this 20-30 times just until you can still see the odd pea sized chunk of butter.
Dump into a bowl, and massage (with your hands), squeezing and rubbing in the butter until the flour is incorporated fully and the mixture starts to look like wet sand.
Add 3/4 cups of large flake rolled oats, and 1/2 cup of toasted flaked almonds.
Gently mix these last ingredients in so they are incorporated, but don't be too rough as to break down the oatmeal or almonds.. you want them left whole.
Put this mixture in a zip-lock bag and put in the refrigerator with the dough, that you are leaving OVERNIGHT, right?? I so know you are going to cheat and try to use it right away.. shame on you.
Now, let's make the filling.
Wash and zest 1 lemon and 1 large navel orange. Mince the zest, and juice both the entire lemon and orange.
Put the zest and juice into a small bowl, mixing in 1/3 cup cornstarch and 3 tablespoons pectin powder. Don't cheat ! Using only cornstarch gives it a totally different mouth-feel, and the pectin give a jam like feel, without being sticky or gummy. If there isn't enough juice to dissolve the cornstarch, then juice another orange and add as much as needed to make a slurry.
Wash 2 containers of blueberries, and remove stems. Each container is 18oz, or 510g, or 2 pints, similar to the picture.. it doesn't need to be exact.
This one is a beast of work, but well worth it.
Blueberry pie can be very "one note" - good, but each bite is sticky sweet with not much excitement, and the wet filling make most crusts dull and soggy, or at the least, wet-cardboard-y.
My version has many different layers of sweet, spice, crunch, zing, zest, and isn't gummy. I'd call this an "advanced level" pie, for those truly serious about their pie. Amateurs should quietly walk away now - sorry.
Here we go...
First, prepare a butter crust.
Cut up 1 1/2 sticks of very cold unsalted butter (6oz) into 1/4" cubes,
In a food processor with a sharp blade, throw in..
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 of the butter cubes.
Process this until the chunks are mostly gone, about 30 seconds of pulsing.
Add the second 1/2 of the butter cubes, and pulse about 10-20 times so that there are still some pea-sized chunks of butter remaining in the flour.
Dump the flour mixture in a bowl and drizzle with 6 tablespoons cold water as you mix and blend with a fork, cutting and mixing in the water until 80% of the dough just starts to adhere, but there is still 20% dry flour in the bowl. You may need at add another tablespoon or so as is required, but don't go beyond the 80% of shaggy dough, and certainly you don't want it to be wet looking or stuck like a ball of bread dough.. no no no.
Use your hand to mix and compress the flour to incorporate some of the dryer flour into the shaggy stuff, and then dump onto a large cutting board and fraisage until it is all one nice adhered clump of dough. Form into a nice disk about 1" think, wrap in plastic and put in fridge OVERNIGHT. Don't cheat.
Wait, what? don't know how to fraisage? Just plug that fancy word into YouTube since there are lots of videos explaining the technique. My pastry instructor at the CIA (who was Swiss) would say "you've got to schmeer it". May of his instructions started with "sch". So, use the heel of your hand, working from one side of the dough, and schmeer it. The water and butter will stick the flour together and make a nice little flat bit of dough. Set this aside in a pile and continue to "schmeer" the rest, setting aside the wafers as you "schmeer" them. This is the difference between fraisage and kneading.. with kneading you are manipulating the entire dough over and over.. but for fraisage you only make a single "schmeer" to bring the dough into a flaky layer once, they set this aside and work on the remainder of the dough. Once you have "schmeered" all the dough, pack together and form the layers/wafers into a disk 1" thick, wrap and refrigerate.. but remember.. OVERNIGHT!
Now, let's make the strudel topping.
Into your food processor, put the following..
1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1 stick of cold butter, cut up into 1/4" cubes.
Pulse this 20-30 times just until you can still see the odd pea sized chunk of butter.
Dump into a bowl, and massage (with your hands), squeezing and rubbing in the butter until the flour is incorporated fully and the mixture starts to look like wet sand.
Add 3/4 cups of large flake rolled oats, and 1/2 cup of toasted flaked almonds.
Gently mix these last ingredients in so they are incorporated, but don't be too rough as to break down the oatmeal or almonds.. you want them left whole.
Put this mixture in a zip-lock bag and put in the refrigerator with the dough, that you are leaving OVERNIGHT, right?? I so know you are going to cheat and try to use it right away.. shame on you.
Now, let's make the filling.
Wash and zest 1 lemon and 1 large navel orange. Mince the zest, and juice both the entire lemon and orange.
Put the zest and juice into a small bowl, mixing in 1/3 cup cornstarch and 3 tablespoons pectin powder. Don't cheat ! Using only cornstarch gives it a totally different mouth-feel, and the pectin give a jam like feel, without being sticky or gummy. If there isn't enough juice to dissolve the cornstarch, then juice another orange and add as much as needed to make a slurry.
Wash 2 containers of blueberries, and remove stems. Each container is 18oz, or 510g, or 2 pints, similar to the picture.. it doesn't need to be exact.
Put 2/3 of the blueberries in a large sauce pot, over medium-high heat, and mash them a little bit with a potato masher or back of a wooden spoon, or your fist - whatever floats yer boat.
Sprinkle over the blueberries 1 cup of white sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Mix as this heats and the blueberries will start to steam and release more of their juice.
Once some of the blueberry juice has been released and the mixture is starting to steam a bit, pour in the lemon/orange juice slurry while mixing constantly, and the remainder of the uncrushed blueberries.
Mix constantly while heating, making sure the bottom doesn't catch as the cornstarch starts to thicken. Once things start to bubble, lower heat to medium-low and continue mixing and cooking for 4 minutes.
Pour into a bowl, cool, and chill.
Assembly (the next day, because you let the pastry sit overnight, right?).. roll out the disk of pastry to 1/8" thick and lay in a pie plate, pinch and trim the edges so it just barely hangs over the pie plate edge.. this is important because we are going to partially blind-bake this crust and it will shrink a bit, so having the pinched edge slightly conforming and hanging over the pie plate edge just a touch will help "hold" the crust from sliding down into the bottom of the dish.. it will still shrink a bit, but this will hold it just enough for the crust to start to firm up. I know what you are mumbling to yourself now... idiot, why doesn't he just lay foil in the pie shell and fill with pie weights or beans, etc.? Well, do you want cardboard or pastry? Your choice. Think about it.. I'll wait..
OK, you're back and I assume you've chosen pastry over cardboard, so NO PIE WEIGHTS. Bloody horrible things.
Pop the pie plate into the refrigerator for a minimum of an hour, 2-3 hours is better, and turn the oven on to 425F, and put a cookie/baking sheet on the lower rack in the oven.
After the shell has chilled, and the oven is preheated, place the pie plate in the oven on the heated cookie/baking sheet. It will take about 20 minutes to par-bake the shell - just enough for it to puff up and the center of the shell to go from looking wet-ish to drying out and just starting to puff. If any part of the shell starts to puff more than a 1/4" or so, use the back of a fork to push it back flat, but don't pierce through the dough - just push it flat. Yes, I can hear those pie-weight people now saying, idiot, he should have just poked holes in the shell with a fork and when it puffs up, use a fork to poke more holes. Have you every tried to hold a cup of water in a sieve? Right. So, NO we WON'T be poking our beautiful flaky pastry full of holes.
While all this pastry-puffing is going on, you can pull out the pie filling and put back on low heat on the stove and bring back to a steaming simmer.. doesn't need to be bubbly boiling, but should be hot.
Pull the puffy shell out of the oven and pour in the hot filling just to fill the shell - there will likely be filling left over.. which freezes great and you can use it for your next pie!
Break up the crumble strudel topping and sprinkle over the hot pie filling - you'll probably have some of this left over also, and it also freezes great. The pie should just be covered evenly with about 1/4" of crumble.
Pop back into the 425F oven for about 15 minutes, and then lower the temp to 375F and continue baking until the topping and the crust is dark brown.
Cool completely and for a minimum 4 hours before cutting into it. 6-8 hours is better.
Yes, I know, lots of work, but I guarantee it is the best blueberry pie you will every have tasted. Enjoy !
Sprinkle over the blueberries 1 cup of white sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Mix as this heats and the blueberries will start to steam and release more of their juice.
Once some of the blueberry juice has been released and the mixture is starting to steam a bit, pour in the lemon/orange juice slurry while mixing constantly, and the remainder of the uncrushed blueberries.
Mix constantly while heating, making sure the bottom doesn't catch as the cornstarch starts to thicken. Once things start to bubble, lower heat to medium-low and continue mixing and cooking for 4 minutes.
Pour into a bowl, cool, and chill.
Assembly (the next day, because you let the pastry sit overnight, right?).. roll out the disk of pastry to 1/8" thick and lay in a pie plate, pinch and trim the edges so it just barely hangs over the pie plate edge.. this is important because we are going to partially blind-bake this crust and it will shrink a bit, so having the pinched edge slightly conforming and hanging over the pie plate edge just a touch will help "hold" the crust from sliding down into the bottom of the dish.. it will still shrink a bit, but this will hold it just enough for the crust to start to firm up. I know what you are mumbling to yourself now... idiot, why doesn't he just lay foil in the pie shell and fill with pie weights or beans, etc.? Well, do you want cardboard or pastry? Your choice. Think about it.. I'll wait..
OK, you're back and I assume you've chosen pastry over cardboard, so NO PIE WEIGHTS. Bloody horrible things.
Pop the pie plate into the refrigerator for a minimum of an hour, 2-3 hours is better, and turn the oven on to 425F, and put a cookie/baking sheet on the lower rack in the oven.
After the shell has chilled, and the oven is preheated, place the pie plate in the oven on the heated cookie/baking sheet. It will take about 20 minutes to par-bake the shell - just enough for it to puff up and the center of the shell to go from looking wet-ish to drying out and just starting to puff. If any part of the shell starts to puff more than a 1/4" or so, use the back of a fork to push it back flat, but don't pierce through the dough - just push it flat. Yes, I can hear those pie-weight people now saying, idiot, he should have just poked holes in the shell with a fork and when it puffs up, use a fork to poke more holes. Have you every tried to hold a cup of water in a sieve? Right. So, NO we WON'T be poking our beautiful flaky pastry full of holes.
While all this pastry-puffing is going on, you can pull out the pie filling and put back on low heat on the stove and bring back to a steaming simmer.. doesn't need to be bubbly boiling, but should be hot.
Pull the puffy shell out of the oven and pour in the hot filling just to fill the shell - there will likely be filling left over.. which freezes great and you can use it for your next pie!
Break up the crumble strudel topping and sprinkle over the hot pie filling - you'll probably have some of this left over also, and it also freezes great. The pie should just be covered evenly with about 1/4" of crumble.
Pop back into the 425F oven for about 15 minutes, and then lower the temp to 375F and continue baking until the topping and the crust is dark brown.
Cool completely and for a minimum 4 hours before cutting into it. 6-8 hours is better.
Yes, I know, lots of work, but I guarantee it is the best blueberry pie you will every have tasted. Enjoy !