Blueberry pie

Two good things happened last week – blueberries were available for only $2 a punnet (I’ve never seen them at that price before) and my lovely friend Amy went blueberry picking and generously gave me a container of the biggest blueberries I have ever seen.

So of course I immediately wanted to make a blueberry pie, and although its blueberry season, it’s not really pie season. It’s notoriously difficult to work with pastry in this heat and humidity, but I couldn’t stop thinking about pie, so here we are. I chose a lattice top for this pie because I’d never tried it before and I think it looks so pretty. Also, lattice tops are good for berry pies because they allow the steam to escape and stop the pastry from going soggy. I will admit it was a nightmare to do in this heat. But it was worth it in the end. Deliciously tart with the flakiest pastry, make this pie during blueberry season!

For the pastry

Ingredients

250g butter, cut into cubes, cold
2½c flour
¾ teaspoon salt
ice water (around ½c)

*one egg (for the wash), beaten well
2-3 tablespoons raw sugar, for sprinkling

Method

In the bowl of a food processor, add the butter, flour and salt and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
With the food processor running on a low speed, slowly drizzle in water until the dough starts to clump together.
Tip out onto a floured surface and gently bring it together. Split the dough into two portions, flatten them into discs and wrap each one in Gladwrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or 2 hours if the weather is stinking hot.

For the filling

Ingredients 

5c fresh blueberries
2/3c sugar
¼c cornflour
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method

In a large bowl, gently stir the ingredients together and set aside.

To assemble

Preheat the oven to 190°C and set aside a 9″ pie dish.
On a floured surface, gently roll out one of the pastry portions. It needs to be big enough to overlap the sides of your pie dish.
Gently lift the dough onto your pie dish and nestle it in. There’s no need to grease your dish, the butter will do its job!
Spoon blueberry mixture evenly onto the base.

Now for the lattice. Sigh. If you haven’t woven a lattice top before, I highly recommend watching this how-to video.

Roll out the remaining piece of dough to a roughly 15″ circle and cut it into 12 even strips, about 1″ wide. Starting with the middle strip, remove every other strip and drape them across the pie, starting in the middle and leaving about ½” in between. Try not to cry when your strips start breaking 😦

Next, fold back every other strip to just over halfway, then take the remaining long strip and place it in the middle. Fold back the opposite strip and pull down the other. (If you think this makes confusing reading, try typing it out. Seriously, just watch the video.)

Then repeat with the next longest piece, fold down the opposite, pull down the other, and repeat until you have a lovely woven lattice. Crimp the top and bottom crusts together and chop off any remaining pastry. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Remove the pie from the fridge and gently brush it all over with the egg wash. Sprinkle with the sugar if using, and bake for around 50 minutes, or until the pastry is nice and golden.

Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature. If you serve the pie while it’s hot, the filling will just spill out. You need to cool it so it thickens. Serve with Greek yoghurt, ice cream or whipped cream. Store any remaining pie, covered, in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Notes

• Chilling the pie before baking keeps the pastry nice and cold, so when you bake it, it doesn’t lose any of it’s flakiness.
• Blueberry filling adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

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