Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie

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Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

You don’t always need a ton of ingredients to make an absolutely mouthwatering dessert. Blueberry pie is one of my favorite summer treats. A few cups of fabulous, fresh fruit. A little sugar to bring out its flavor. A handful of flour to trap all that luscious juice and thicken it into a syrupy sauce.

Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

I think my favorite way to serve blueberry pie is with a big scoop of ginger ice cream. (More on that to come soon.)

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

This article also provides a step-by-step tutorial for making a double-crust pie (i.e. a pie with a crust on top, as well as on the bottom).

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Blueberries have to be one of my favorite summer fruits.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

There are a few schools of thought on how to best thicken a fresh berry pie. Some folks use tapioca. Others use cornstarch. I usually prefer to use flour.

Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

That said, this can definitely still be a fairly juicy pie, depending on your berries.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Cold butter: The key to a flaky crust

Be sure that your butter is cold when you make the dough. When the butter is cold, bits of butter flatten out in layers when mixed with flour to make the dough. (If your butter is warm, it will blend completely with the flour.)

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Those layers of butter release steam when the crust is baked—which helps make your pastry nice and flaky.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

To keep the dough even colder, use a marble board and rolling pin. Chill them if you like. I usually don’t bother with this, and my crusts come out just fine.

Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Other flavors to add to your blueberry pie

This is a basic recipe. You can add all sorts of different flavors in with the berries. For example, you could add a tablespoon or two of freshly grated ginger or lemon zest.

Homemade Blueberry Pie

For the crust
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup cold butter (that’s 11 Tbls.)
1/4 cup cold water

For the filling
5 cups fresh blueberries (that’s about 3 pints)
1 cup sugar
6 Tbls. flour

Makes 1 9-inch pie

Lightly grease an 9-inch pie plate with butter or oil. Set it aside. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Make the dough for the double-crust pie

Put the flour and salt in the bowl of your food processor. (You can also cut the pastry together by hand using a pastry blender or a couple of forks.)

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Toss in the butter.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Pulse them together until the butter and flour are combined and the mixture is fairly uniform. You’re aiming for raggy bits of flour and butter, like this:

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Drizzle in the water, pulsing the food processor at the same time. (If you’re making the dough by hand, drizzle with one hand and mix with the other.)

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

You want the dough to just come together into a smooth-ish ball.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Gather the dough up into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for maybe 20 minutes. (Again, to keep that butter cold so your pastry is flaky.)

Roll out the bottom crust

When the dough is chilled, unwrap it and put it on a lightly floured board.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Whack it in half with a bencher or large, sharp knife.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Put one half back in the fridge. Roll the other half into a ball.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Smoosh it into a flat disk with your hand.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Roll it out so that it’s flat. Keep the dough as even and uniform in thickness as you can.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Some of the edges will split like this. That’s just fine. (You’re eventually going to roll the edges together with the top crust.)

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

How do you know if your dough is large enough to fit your pan? Just take your pie plate and set it on top of the rolled dough. If you’re using a fairly standard pie plate (i.e. not a deep-dish pan) like my Pyrex pan, your dough should be slightly larger than the pan.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Put the bottom crust in the pie plate

Some folks fold their dough up in quarters like a handkerchief, then unfold it in the dish. I always seem to rip the dough when I do that. Here’s how I get my bottom crust in the pan.

Set your rolling pin on top of the dough, close to one end.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

With a bencher, scoot the edge of the dough up.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Flop it over on top of the rolling pin.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Gently, roll the pin back, sliding the dough along with it.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Grab the ends of the rolling pin and slide the dough over your greased pie pan, so that it’s centered.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Don’t make yourself nuts getting the dough perfectly even. You’ll clean it up when you add the top crust.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Toss the blueberries in flour and sugar

Time to make the filling. Put your berries in a large mixing bowl. You could add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice here, if you like.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Toss in the sugar and flour.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

With your hands, mix the flour, sugar, and berries together to combine them well.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Pour the mixture into the bottom crust.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

With your hands, gently mix the berries around so that the flour/sugar mixture looks fairly evenly distributed. Take the time to do this. If all your flour winds up in one place, you can wind up with lumps in your pie filling.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Roll out the top crust for the pie

Grab your other ball of pie crust dough out of the fridge. Roll it flat just like you did with the bottom crust.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Check it for size the same way you did with the bottom crust.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Roll the top crust on to cover the berry filling.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Your top crust should hang over the edges of your pie pan, like this. (If for some reason it’s too small, just slide it off and roll it a little flatter.)

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Trim the top crust a little so that it’s fairly even and round. You want it to hang over the edge of the pie pan by about an inch or so. (Save all the trimmings. Sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar and bake them along with the pie for an impromptu treat.)

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Seal the edges of the pie crust

Put the top and bottom crusts together, and roll them under. (By doing this, you’re sealing the two crusts together—and keeping your filling totally contained so it won’t leak out when baked.)

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

You want the crust to look about like this:

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Keep rolling the crust under like this until you’ve gone completely around the pie.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

When you’re done, you shouldn’t be able to see any of the berry filling.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Poke a little hole in the center of the pie with a sharp knife. The filling will need to release some steam as it cooks.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Cut a few slits in the top, also. You can get really fancy with this (make squiggly cuts, etc.), or just make a few slashes. Again, this is to help release steam.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

You can also get fancy with those leftover scraps of dough. I like to grab a small piece…

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

…and roll it into a tube…

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

And make a little design around the center hole. (Just rub a little water on the bottom of the dough to make it stick.) Again, this is purely aesthetic.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

And there you have it! One double-crust blueberry pie, ready for the oven!

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Bake the pie in a 425-degree oven

Slide your pie into your preheated 425-degree oven. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Your pie is done when the crust is golden brown and filling has started to bubble up through the top slits.

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Cool the pie in the pan before serving. (You can serve it right away, but the hotter the filling is, the more it will ooze.)

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

Enjoy!

Basic Cooking: How to Make a Blueberry Pie at The Hungry Mouse

 

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Jessie Cross is a cookbook author and creator of The Hungry Mouse, a monster online food blog w/500+ recipes. When she's not shopping for cheese or baking pies, Jessie works as an advertising copywriter in Boston. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts with her husband and two small, fluffy wolves.

25 COMMENTS

  1. OMG! Jessie if you only knew - Thumper and my favorite pie is blueberry.Actually anything blueberry is our favorite. This pie looks so delicious our mouths are watering.Your crust is perfection. Can I have that piece of pie, now ;)
  2. I love that this pie is not too complicated to bake. The filling is simple and the crust is simple as well. This pie is making me hungry and it's really late here!
  3. Your pie looks amazing... Something I learned from Baking with Julia is to add a nectarine and a pinch of lemon zest to Blueberry pie, balances out the sweetness of the blueberries. One of my all time favorite pies....
    • Thanks, Elle! Definitely give the food processor a shot if you haven't tried making crust that way before. I feel like it makes it a lot easier...and you're less prone to overwork the dough. +Jessie
  4. Yum! I'm scared of making a homemade pie crust, I usually just chicken out and buy them. I'll try it using the food processor. I'm sure that would be a good crust for homemade chicken pot pie also.
    • Oh, silly pants. Use your food processor. You'll be just fine. :D Let me know how it goes? And you're right...the crust would be fabulous for chicken pot pie. +Jessie
  5. I just made this as little mini pies (used muffin tin) and with blackberries instead of blueberries. For years I have avoided making a pie because, like many others, I was squeamish about home made crust. But the food processor hint made it so easy! The blackberry switch made it a little more tart but my guy LOVES tart, so it went over well (bonus points because he usually does not eat dessert). Thank you soooo much for this simple yet wonderful recipe!
  6. I'm 17, and have never attempted pastry work, baking, or making a pie in any way. My mother is one of those moms who works and looks for a quick, frozen apple turnover for dessert. Needless to say, she was blown away when I randomly made this pie on my day off. I LOOOVE the many pictures. Without those, I would have never been able to do this. I don't have a food processor, so I cut the butter in by hand (ow my arms!) but the crust turned out perfect. I think I added a little too much sugar in the filling, but that's my fault! Anyway, the pie was great, and easy enough for a first timer to follow! Thanks for the recipe, and the added courage to do it by showing all the pictures!
  7. Hi, First off, I love your site and follow you on FB! Please don't ever stop! Now the question: If I substitute blueberries with raspberries, apple or peaches, would the sugar and flour quantities added to the filling change? thank you so much! Ana

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