Deconstruction of a blueberry pie removes the sugar but leaves the indulgence
A from-scratch fruit pie for a once-a-month dinner group get-together wasn't something I would have made until I saw a picture of Rose Levy Beranbaum's (the author of the legendary “The Cake Bible”) single-crust blueberry pie.
My experiences with scratch-made pies in general and blueberry pies specifically have not been good, which is why I've never shared a single recipe for pie crust, let alone a scratch-made fruit pie of any kind.
I considered that it would be easy for me to try Beranbaum's pie since I already had a pie crust leftover from a no-corn-syrup pecan pie I had successfully made for Thanksgiving.
Yes, I know, blueberry season's months away, but that blueberry pie picture looked sooooo good I just had to make one. And, I wanted to eliminate the half-cup added sugar (387 calories) Beranbaum used. Bottom line: I wanted a slice of fresh, homemade blueberry pie right now; not months from now.
I skipped Beranbaum's pie crust recipe, which seemed a little fussy since I already had a crust.
The last standard blueberry pie I made, around 14 years ago, tasted great but the blueberry filling just didn't thicken and ran all over the plates. The crust wasn't sufficiently baked either and had a raw dough texture and flavor. See, fruit-pie shy.
If you're willing to try to make a scratch-made pie crust know that the shortening for pie crusts, whether you're using butter or the classic, lard, or vegetable shortening like Crisco, all need to be just the right temperature. Too soft and the shortening blends completely with the flour at which point you're making a large cookie. If the shortening's too hard, it's almost impossible to blend it properly with and into the flour.
For my Thanksgiving pie, I used Cook's Illustrated's recipe and methods for the crust. The end results were impressive; beautifully golden brown and almost perfectly flaky. Feeling adventurous? Here's CI's crust recipe: seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/11/cooks-illustrated-foolproof-pie-dough-recipe.html.
Beranbaum's pie recipe required blind baking the crust. Blind baking means that the crust is baked before filling until it's golden brown using pie weights.
Pie weights? Yes. Pie weights can be a pound of dried beans, like kidney beans or purchased ceramic or metal pie weights.
First I lined my rolled-out crust with parchment paper and then poured in my pie weights. Once baked and cooled slightly I painted my crust's bottom and sides with egg white to keep the filling from making the crust soggy.
Beranbaum's filling is a breeze to make and went together beautifully, even though I used stevia instead of sugar. I poured the filling into my pre-baked crust and let it sit for two hours and then whisked it off to the party.
Even though there were several chocolate desserts provided, my fresh blueberry pie disappeared quickly, long before any of the chocolate desserts.
Winner, winner; fresh blueberry pie for dinner.
If you don't want to make your own crust, I like Trader Joe's pie crust because it contains no trans fats, as some others can.
• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at don@ theleanwizard.com.