It’s the dead of winter but as chance would have it, I had a couple of bags of frozen blueberries in the freezer from last summer’s harvest. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve made three pies and I’ve been experimenting with just the right ratio of tapioca to sugar and the optimum oven temps to produce the perfect pie. Here is my results:
Perfect Blueberry Pie
Filling:
4 cups frozen blueberries
¼ cup tapioca
¼ cup sugar
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons butter
Pie Crust for 9 ½ inch pie
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees (Fahrenheit).
Mix together the blueberries, tapioca, sugar and lemon juice and let stand for about 15 minutes. Assemble pie, dotting the filling with pats of butter sealing the pie with the top curst and place in oven on bottom rack. Bake for one hour.
Yep, that’s all there is to it. The secret was baking the pie on the bottom rack. That technique produced a lovely brown, crispy bottom crust and perfectly formed pie wedges. Wish I could show you, but we ate it!
7 comments:
Oh. YUM! It's almost too good looking to eat! I've had problems with runny raspberry pies; I think I'll make a copy of your recipe for future reference. Thanks for the eye candy!
another way is to coat the frozen blueberries with a couple tablespoons of flour, stir up, put in the pie shell, or one can use agar agar. looks yummy! i like extra lemon in it to balance the sweetness!
i meant to say kudzo...
The pie looks great, but I need a fool proof pie crust recipe, because no matter what I try, I can't make a decent pie crust!
wow. looks like just the thing to put Mr. Pie Man (my husband) onto for tonight's dessert. Normally I limit him to cherry (my fave) and special apple/brandy/currant pie, but we too have bags of frozen bluebs needing to be eaten.
One question:do you thaw the blubes first?
Pie Crust for Marilyn (Can I do this on your blog, alice thelma?)
This one is great, a customized version of one from Cook's Illustrated magazine. The first rule is: use a food processor! For a single crust:
1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 Tb sugar
1/2 tsp salt
8 Tb (one cube) chilled, unsalted butter(cut into 1/4" pieces
4-6 Tb ice water or chilled sherry or combo
1. Pulse flour, salt & sugar in food processor with regular steel blade. Add cold butter in small pieces and pulse until butter pieces no longer clearly visible.
2. When properly mixed, it will be slightly yellow, mealy in texture rather than floury and will ride up the side of the bowl. Transfer to regular mixing bowl.
3. Add ice water or sherry or a combination, bit by bit, tossing and pressing the dry ingredients against the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. The amount of liquid necessary to bring a dough together can vary up to 50% depending on how dry the flour is.
4. Too much water is better than too little; a dry crust cannot be rolled out. Dough should clean the sides of the bowl and be wet to the touch. Form a ball, lightly flour, flatten into a 6" disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour.
After that you are on your own. The biggest challenge for most people is getting the fat incorporated and adding the correct amount of water. For this reason, my husband now makes all our pie crusts, as my impatience with the whole piemaking experience culminated in my final piecrust being thrown across the room and into the wall in frustration. After that I was forcibly retired from the field and hubbo graciously took over.
or maybe alice thelma will share her crust recipe with us?
Kathy - No you don't have to thaw blueberries first. Just use them straight from the freezer. Thanks for the crust recipe. Maybe I should start a cooking/baking blog!
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