Whenever I have fresh berries, I never know the proportions for thickening them for baking in a pie. Blueberry seem to be the one fruit that evades me - I have never gotten it right. I found this formula as I was scanning recipes. It’s not really a “recipe” - but it seemed to turn out just sweet & thick enough.
For some strange reason, blueberries are EVERYWHERE right now. Am I imagining it, but don’t they usually show up in the spring (not January)? I’m not complaining - because I love it when they are available for a good price. So... I had the urge to make a blueberry pie in the dead of winter!
Am I the only one that has trouble getting blueberry pie filling “right”? It’s either too runny, thicker than frozen mud, or very bitter. I ran across a formula that seems to take the guesswork out of it.
Resist the temptation to “fudge” on amounts here (I had about 1/2 cup extra of blueberries and just threw them in with extra water... it came out too runny)
When I’m in a hurry, I like to make my pie without the traditional top crust. Instead of dividing the pie dough in half for the top & bottom crust, I just roll the whole amount out into an extra large circle. I center it in the pie pan and drape the excess over the edge of the pie pan (and there is a LOT of excess... like about 4” over the edge).
After filling it, I then make accordion folds around the outer edge as shown. It looks hard, but it’s very simple. No venting of the crust is needed - as it has one large vent in the center. This is called a “galette” - or a very INformal, rustic style of pie. I really like it because it’s extra fast. You’ll see these baked “free-form” on a baking sheet - but I like mine in a pie tin to keep it from oozing as it bakes.
For two other recipes using this lazy “free-form” pie - check out the posts on Lazy (Free-Form) Pie, and Plum Galette/Crostata.
Grab those blueberries before they go into hiding again until spring.
For the proportions & full recipe - go to:
.
No comments:
Post a Comment