Blueberry Pie
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It feels crazy that we’re already deep into September!
As I hold a great respect for nature and cooking by the seasons, I had every intention to publish this video while we were in the thick of Summer and blueberries were at their prime. However, a few unplanned snafus made that a little challenging. Nevertheless, even though Summer just came and went in a flash and Autumn is creeping its way in, it IS still Summer, and I couldn’t leave you without a blueberry pie recipe!
I had been working on this recipe since the 4th of July when my friend so adamantly asked me to make her blueberry pie. But not any old blueberry pie. She was craving a particular pie, bursting of voluptuous blueberries in a crumbly graham crust that only the lucky ones have tasted at Steve and Cookie’s in Margate, New Jersey.
Now, having never been to Steve and Cookie’s and never tasted their famous pie, I went through a few (still delicious) but failed attempts at recreating the beautiful simplicity of that pie. Too many cooked blueberries, filling too thickened, crust not crumbly enough. Oddly, though blueberries are my father’s favorite fruit, blueberry pie was never something I grew up on. Cherry pie was our household signature. Feeling near defeat, I decided I needed to try this pie for myself, and off we went on an adventure. Boy was I not disappointed. That blueberry filling was bright and bursting with fresh blueberries! Not super sweet, nice and light. And the crust, even though I did not try, was so delightfully crumbly I imagined it would just melt when it touched my tongue.
Back home again, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work in the kitchen. And I decided to make it gluten free because, HECK, I wanted to eat it. Slightly sweetened plump blueberries kissed with a hint of cinnamon and cardamom and a zing of lemon encased in a crumbly gluten free graham cracker crust. Try it for yourself. Trust me, it doesn’t get much better than a slice of blueberry pie, served with a billowy whipped cream and maybe a sip of refreshing lemonade, on a sunny day.
RECIPE NOTES:
I highly recommend sticking to the Teff flour in the graham cracker recipe, as it adds such a brilliant whole grain earthiness and makes this taste like their gluten-full counterpart. However, if you cannot find Teff flour, some adequate substitutes could be dark buckwheat, brown rice, or more oat flour.
You can certainly buy oat flour, but why not just make it yourself by finely grinding oats to a flour in a spice/coffee grinder.
For the purpose of the pie crust, there is no need to make the graham dough super thin or the edges straight. Just make sure to roll to an even thickness so it bakes evenly.
If you want to make graham crackers, roll to about 1/4 inch thickness and try to keep the edges as straight and clean as possible. Score dough into rectangles and dock with a fork. Sprinkle with sugar in the raw/demarara sugar and bake as directed above. Bake a little less if you prefer a softer graham cracker.
The graham cracker recipe makes 550 grams total, so 50 grams of that is yours to snack on.
The graham cracker crust recipe makes 630 grams — this amount would be perfect for a deeper 10” pie pan. If using a smaller pie or tart pan, you will have a little extra crust. I used 450 grams in my tart pan and had 290 grams left over. Feel free to make a baby pie, freeze for later, or bake as a streusel to eat on top of lots of yummy things. I’m eating the rest of the crust sprinkled on top of yogurt.
The more blueberries you cook in the beginning, the more “cooked” the pie will be. There truly is nothing like the burst of fresh berries in your pie, so I wanted to only do about 1/4 cooked. Feel free to play around with your amounts, as desired.
To make this dairy free and just as delicious, substitute a dairy free butter such as Mikonos or Earth Balance in the graham, crust and filling recipes.
To make this gluten-full, substitute your favorite recipe or store-bought variety for the graham crackers.
Trust me, the longer you let this cool completely, the more set up the pie filling will be.
When whipping cream, you always want to start at a slow speed and slowly increase up to a higher speed. This creates a more solid network of molecules for a more stable and voluminous whipped cream.
ENJOY!!!