Friday 30 March 2012

Blueberry Pie from Scratch

Blueberries are one of my favourite fruits.  I enjoy baking any recipe that contains blueberries in it.  I bake a lot of pies but the Pie that's a hit in my family is the Blueberry Pie.  I have tried a million of on-line recipes in preparing pie crust from scratch but I found the following to be the most flakiest.

Blueberry Pie from Scratch
9" Pie pan

Ingredients:
2 - 4 tablespoons ice water
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 ounces (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces
1/2 cup Crisco shortening (however I prefer using Tenderflake Shortening)
Egg wash of 1 yolk whisked with 1 tablespoon water

Filling:
4 cups fresh blueberries
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon lemon juice
4 tablespoon of all purpose flour

Directions:

In a large bowl, stir together one cup of flour, sugar and salt.  With a hand-held pastry blender, cut butter into flour until butter is dime-sized.  Add shortening, cut into mixture till dime-sized.  Lightly stir in remaining flour.  Sprinkle with half the water.  With a full palm, squeeze flour together against the side of bowl.  Rub hands together to drop damp flour into mixture.  Drops at a time, add just enough water to hold together; the less water the better, dry crumbs on the bottom are good.  Refrigerate while making your desired filling.

Preheat oven at 375F.

Prepare filling:  In a large bowl, mix together the blueberries, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and flour until thoroughly well blended.  Set aside.

Prepare Crust:  Place silicone mat on counter or work on working board; sprinkle flour.  Cut dough in half, return second piece to frig. Sprinkle dough with flour.  Working in just one direction, roll dough into an oval the diameter of the pie plate plus its sides.  Slip a bench knife beneath the dough to loosen, turn 90 degrees.  Roll again to form a circle.  Brush off excess flour.  Place pie plate to left.  Palm up, place right hand below silicone mat and gently flip dough onto pie plate.  If needed, gently flip resposition and patch pastry.  Brush off excess flour.  Refrigerate.

Roll out top crust.  Fill bottom crust with your filling.  Add about 5 small thin-cut pieces of butter (here and there) on the filling.  This prevents filling to drip.  Gently flip top crust over filling, brush off excess flour.  Trim excess pastry, then turn under and press to form and seal the edge.  I use a fork to seal the pie edge.  Slice top to vent.  Brush (but not edges) with egg wash.  Bake at 375F for about 45 to 55 minutes, on middle rach depending on your oven.

NOTE:  You could use same recipe to bake an applie pie.  Apple filling:  Normally the granny smith apples are best used for  pies.  However I love baking my applie pie using the MacIntosh Apples.  Apple Filling:  6 large apples, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 4 tablespoon flour and 1 tsp of lemon juice.  Stir thoroughly and fill pie and don't forget to add a bit of butter drops here and there before placing the top crust for baking.





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