One of the great revelations of my recent trip to the US was the quality and variety of sweet pies – from California to Connecticut, every cafe and diner had at least two or three to choose from. The farther north I got, however, the greater the chance was that one of those would involve blueberries – a fruit that, in my opinion, is even nicer in a pastry case than fresh, particularly in the UK, unless you’re lucky enough to be eating them straight from the bush.
Sadly, this profusion of pie has not followed me back home, so I’ve been forced into making my own, quickly discovering that this juicy, delicately perfumed berry is harder to work with than American bakers let on. So just what is the secret to achieving that perfect crisp, buttery crust and flavourful fruit filling, without mail-ordering dessert from Maine?
The pastry
Let’s start with the relatively easy bit: most of us can make a crust, albeit not one that might stand up to Paul and Pru’s scrutiny, and most of us have preferences in that department, so there’s actually no wrong answer here. If you have a favourite shortcrust, or hot water, or rough puff pastry, by all means use it, though I’d note that one of the things I like best about the American pie tradition is their tendency to skew towards the savoury, which helps to balance the inevitable sweetness of the filling, and something that’s particularly welcome with fruit.
If you do not have strong feelings on the subject, however, let me share some of the different crusts I’ve made in the course of this pie-baking odyssey. Most of them were fairly short and crumbly, with the sturdiest coming from pastry chef Brian Levy – the version in his book Good & Sweet is inspired by the ones his family would pick up on their way to summer get-togethers at his grandparents’ house on Long Island. Robust and golden, with a dash of cider vinegar to inhibit gluten formation and keep it tender, it even retains its good looks all the way from London to Birmingham on a Friday evening train.
Rose Levy Beranbaum’s cream cheese pie crust, from her Baking Bible, is, as might be expected from a recipe that uses butter, cream cheese and double cream, richer and softer (“melt in the mouth”, according to one satisfied customer), while the cornmeal-spiked shortcrust from Diana Scott-Sho of the Luscious Little Dessert Company in Yonkers (via Melissa Clark in the New York Times) is deliciously squidgy (possibly helped by the lard I used in place of shortening), and has a moreish, gritty crunch.
The runaway favourite with my testers, however, is pastry chef Stella Parks’ ridiculously buttery rough puff for Serious Eats, which uses equal weights of flour and fat, and is pressed into the dough in large pieces, rather than rubbed in completely. This yields crisp layers that make for a very satisfying textural contrast with the soft filling. I’ve amended Parks’ recipe only slightly, cutting the sugar and incorporating a small amount of cornmeal for extra crunch – and, I admit, also because I can’t resist the idea of adding another classic American flavour. Otherwise, it feels to me well nigh-perfect already.
Few recipes call for the crust to be blind baked; only two bother: those from Beranbaum and a kind Instagram correspondent, who sends me the Forbringer family’s favourite recipe, acquired from “a blueberry cookbook that was given out by the Acadia National Park in Maine in 1987”, and that’s only because the filling itself never sees the oven in both cases. Otherwise, the consensus seems to be that the fruit takes so long to cook, it would be foolish to subject the crust to any longer in the oven than is strictly necessary – after all, with all that juice swimming around, a really crisp base is never going to be achievable, or even desirable. Plus, who doesn’t love purple pastry?
For the same reason, I’d recommend going for a lattice top (which really rules out blind baking in any case), or any other design that allows steam to exit without impediment. Yes, you could cut holes into a full top, or indeed make a virtue of the overflowing juices, as Scott-Sho suggests, spooning them back over the pastry so, in the words of Clark, it “thickens into something akin to soft fruit leather, and far tastier”. But why waste any of the good stuff when you don’t have to?
The fruit
Juice is, I quickly discover, the central issue when it comes to blueberry pie – as is perhaps inevitable when the main ingredient is 84% water. I didn’t grow up eating blueberries (I don’t think they were commonplace in 1980s and 90s Britain, though possibly they were just expensive) and I remain somewhat puzzled by their meteoric ascent. They’re nice enough, but even the most devoted consumer of the supermarket versions would surely struggle to describe them as flavour bombs.
Cooking, however, allows for the concentration of that faint sweetness into something far more interesting, and closer to the seasonal farmstead blueberries I was briefly lucky enough to taste in New England – that said, you’ll get even better results if you augment them with bilberries (also known as hurts, blaeberries, wimberries and whortleberries regionally), the commercial blueberry’s wild cousin that’s found on high ground in the UK, and is easily obtainable frozen online. This is an idea I initially get from Levy, though Parks also uses them, and I can see why: bilberries have a wonderful perfume, but, as I’m using frozen fruit, a rather soggy consistency, while fresh blueberries help to sweeten the filling and give it a more interesting texture.
In an attempt to reduce the amount of juice the berries produce, and in defiance of all wisdom that counsels using frozen fruit as is, I’ve decided to defrost the bilberries and drain off their juice. Having macerated the fresh fruit in sugar and lemon juice to draw out its liquid, as Levy suggests, both juices are then reduced, along with a portion of the berries, to create a fruity sauce, much like in the Forbringers’ and Levy Beranbaum’s pies. The rest of the fruit is used raw, so it pops in the mouth in a very enjoyable fashion.
Famed Brooklyn bakery Four & Twenty Blackbirds includes a grated apple in the mix, too, which gives it more body, while Brian Levy, whose book is focused on replacing refined sugars with naturally sweet wholefoods, sweetens his filling with freeze-dried apples, which work brilliantly to create a genuinely sliceable pie. But, helpful as it may be in the texture department, apple brings its own flavour, too, and I don’t want anything shouting over my blueberries.
Thus I spend a lot of time and, given the price of both butter and blueberries, not an inconsiderable amount of money in pursuit of what I come to think of as the blueberry pie holy grail – juicy and saucy, but also dry enough to cut into neat wedges – before it finally strikes me that perhaps the two are mutually exclusive. After all, something cannot be both juicy and completely solid – having canvassed opinion, it seems that no one minds a bit of filling spilling out of the side of their slice of pie, if that filling tastes good.
Perhaps I’m making excuses for my own ineptitude – after all, Parks, a woman who knows her pies, is very firm that “picture-perfect blueberry pie is ridiculously easy to make”, but her formula relies on using 5.5% of the total weight of the fruit in starch (easy enough to achieve) and 25% of its weight to “protect that starch from thermal hydrolysis, AKA overcooking”. For me, blueberries are already sweet enough, so I’m prepared to accept a little bit of visual imperfection to let them shine. If you have a sweeter tooth, however, know that you’ll get a firmer set if you double the sugar – and that Parks’ pie is pretty damn good.
The flavourings
Given that this entire exercise has been devoted to bringing out this rather shy and retiring fruit, you won’t be surprised to know that, apart from sugar and citrus juice, and sugar, I’ve opted to let the blueberries stand alone. (Lemon is the standard choice, but I take a suggestion from a New York Times reader who shares the “trick” to making “the best blueberry pie, possibly in the world” underneath Sam Sifton’s recipe: “Use lime juice instead of lemon … lime has a ‘softer’ and more aromatic flavour – it’s like you’re also tasting it with your nose ... I know – weird”).
If, however, you’re more confident in the flavour of your berry haul, you might, like Levy, want to deploy spices such as coriander and allspice to “draw out, rather than distract from, the natural character of the berries”. Or indeed you could add a dash of Four & Twenty Blackbirds’ Angostura bitters lavender oil (edible-grade stuff can be bought online, but be careful: a little goes a long way). Cinnamon is also mentioned online, which to me always feels like a very American spice, albeit one with a tendency to hog the mic.
The thickener
There are some fruits that can simply be tossed into a pie case with no further fuss, but you’ll be unsurprised to learn that we’re not dealing with one of them here. America’s Test Kitchen notes that “sweet, delicate blueberries are easily overshadowed by a dull thickener”, which is confirmed by a few I tried in the US, though none of the recipes I try suffers from this problem, so it’s largely a matter of what you have to hand. I find I prefer the silkier, clearer finish supplied by arrowroot to the more commonly used cornflour. But you could also use tapioca (Levy and Parks’ choice) or even potato starch or plain flour – though the latter should be your last resort because it can deliver results that Miriam Foster of the Orient Country Store on Long Island tells Sifton are “gummy and goopy and gloopy”. Whatever you go for, make sure the sauce is pretty thick before it goes into the pie case.
In fact, I’m going to leave you with words of Foster, a woman who’s baked more than her fair share of these things: “You’re never going to get a perfect blueberry pie. That’s the whole point of blueberry pie!” That said, with the recipe below, I think you can at least get pretty close to perfectly imperfect.
Perfect blueberry pie
Prep 15 min
Chill 2 hr 30 min+
Cook 1 hr 55 min
Serves 8
For the pastry
200g plain flour, plus extra for rolling
25g coarse cornmeal (optional), or use 25g extra plain flour
1 tsp demerara sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
½ tsp fine salt
225g very cold butter, cut into 1cm dice
1 egg, beaten with a little water
For the filling
200g frozen bilberries (AKA wild blueberries), defrosted
700g blueberries
100g sugar
Scant ¼ tsp salt
2 tbsp lime or lemon juice – I prefer lime in this dish
45g ground arrowroot
Note you will need a deep roughly 23cm pie dish for this. Start with the pastry. Put the flour, cornmeal, sugar and salt in a large bowl and whisk to combine.
Add the diced butter to the flour mix, and toss to coat. Press each piece of butter flat with your fingertips – don’t overwork it – then stir in just enough water to bring the mix together into a smooth, but not wet ball of dough – you should need up to 100ml or so. (If the butter starts to smear at any point, put the pastry in the fridge, or, if it’s really warm, the freezer for 15 minutes.)
Tip the dough on a floured work surface and shape it into a roughly ¾cm-thick rectangle. Fold the top third of the rectangle down into the centre, then fold the bottom third up over it. Turn the pastry 90 degrees, repeat the folds, then cut the pastry in half.
On a well-floured work surface, roll out one half of the pastry and use it to line a deep pie dish about 23cm in diameter, making sure there’s enough slightly to overhang the sides all the way around. Cover completely and chill for at least two hours and up to 12.
Roll out the other half of the pastry into a rectangle at least 25cm wide, then lift on to a floured flat baking tray or board, wrap well and chill.
Meanwhile, make the filling. Tip the defrosted bilberries into a sieve over a jug to catch their juices.
Put the blueberries into a large bowl with the sugar, salt and citrus juice, toss and leave to steep for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally, until the juices have really started to run and the berries look slightly deflated.
Drain the blueberry liquid into a small pan, pressing the berries gently while keeping them intact, then add the bilberry juice and 200g of the blueberries, and bring to a simmer. Leave to simmer gently until the berries have broken down and the liquid has reduced and thickened slightly.
In a small bowl, whisk some of the berry juices into the arrowroot to make a loose paste, then stir this back into the pan until well combined and thickened – do not be alarmed that it sets so quickly.
Stir in the remaining blueberries and the bilberries, leave to cool, stirring occasionally, then, once completely cool, spoon the fruit filling into the chilled pie shell.
Cut the remaining pastry rectangle into roughly 2½cm-wide strips, then arrange these on top of the pie in a neat over-and-under lattice pattern – if you’ve never attempted this before, there are many online step-by-step guides to help you master the process (this one on Serious Eats is especially helpful).
Go all around the edge of the pie with the back of a fork, pressing the strips on to the rim of the dish, then return to the fridge and chill for at least another 30 minutes.
Heat the oven and a rimmed baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper to 220C (200C fan)/425F/gas 7. Beat the egg with a splash of water, then brush all over the pastry, being careful not to smear any filling on to the pastry because it will burn during baking. Sprinkle with more sugar, then put the pie in the oven for 25 minutes. Turn down the heat to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6 and bake for a further 45 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and the filling is bubbling in the centre – keep an eye on it, though: if the pastry threatens to burn or overcook, cover with foil, or put a flat baking tray on the shelf above.
Remove the pie from the oven and leave to cool down and set further before cutting into it – or, if you really can’t resist, enjoy your juicy pie hot from the oven.
Blueberry pie: do you prefer it in neat purple slices, or spilling juicily from the pastry? Spiced or plain? And with raw or cooked fruit? And do blueberries really taste better in North America?
