Blueberry Pie with Lemon Crust - Take 2

Fruit pies are delicious and I for one could not wait to try this pie.  The Meyer Lemons I used were straight out of my father-in-law's garden.  My variation from Cat's recipe and technique is that I use a food processor to make my crust while she makes her crust by hand.  Everyone has their own recipe and technique that have turned out delicious pie and I know this will be source of continued debate until we can come together to bake and taste multiply crusts.  

Other modifications I made was using only 1 cup of sugar as she felt her pie was too sweet.  I used frozen blueberries at her suggestion which was so easy and affordable.  The blueberries can be thrown in with the rest of the ingredients straight from the bag without any need for thawing.  The allspice gave the pie a deeper flavor instead of using just cinnamon.  The lemon crust was particularly wonderful as you could really taste the lemon when eating the crust alone but also added another layer of flavor eaten with the blueberries.  All in all, a home run!

Little Boy Blue

Blueberry Pie with Lemon Crust

Every good pie begins with a good crust and every cook swears theirs is the best. I shall leave the pie crust recipe to your choosing, but I may make suggestions along the way.  For this pie you will need a 9 inch pie tin and a 2 crust recipe. If your pie crust recipe doesn’t call for sugar I suggest you add 2 tbsp of sugar to the flour for this pie and the zest from two lemons.

Little Boy Blue

For the Filling:

- 30oz of frozen wild blueberries or 6 cups of fresh wild blueberries or huckleberries

- 1 ¼ cups brown sugar (light or dark)

- 6 tbsp quick cooking tapioca

- 2 medium Meyer Lemons or regular lemons juiced

- 2 tsp ground allspice

- 1tbsp unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees and line pie tin with bottom crust.  Mix first 5 ingredients together. Pour into an unbaked pie shell and dot with butter pieces. Add top pie crust, seal and vent.  Beat one egg with a tbsp of water, brush evenly on top of pie crust and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake for 25 min, cover the rim of the crust with tin foil to prevent burning. Reduce heat to 375 degrees, bake for an additional 50 min.  It may be runny if you serve it hot, but will thicken nicely as it cools.  Enjoy!

The Beginning...

My love affair with pies began at age 7. It was one of those lazy summer days in which I spent the morning picking wild blackberries by a creek bed. That afternoon I showed my grandmother my basket and she suggested we make a pie. It was the first time I had ever mixed and rolled a pie crust. After that first bite of hot wild blackberry pie I was hooked.

Many years and pies have passed since that summer day and last Thanksgiving my brother challenged his wife and I to come up with 10 great pie recipes. Much to his wife's dismay when she joined this family of cooks she learned we never wrote our recipes down. We threw in whatever tastes good or pass it along like a storyteller passes along an oral history. As I look through my families recipes on both sides, I understand her frustration. This will be my chance to decipher,decode, and remember to write down recipes of the past, present and future.   

For a recipe to go from good to great, it sometimes takes a couple different bakers combining their strengths. Every time I make a pie that meets my satisfaction I send the recipe to my sister-in-law. We decided to blog about it to share our experiences and little tweaks to the recipes along the way.  Sit back and enjoy the pie!