42 thoughts on “Recipe for July 8, 2008”

  4. hornedfroggy- I would say yes, you can use another berry. Whatever you can get in the area you are in. I plan to use fresh picked black raspberries from the backyard at our summer cottage. We leave for vacay on Thursday, WOOHOO!

  6. hornedfroggy, thank you for asking the question and slush thanks for the answer. I was going to just sit this one out but if I can use a different berry, well, I’m in :)

  10. Yeah!! I just got some really great fresh berries and I have been wanting to make that pie for a while! I’m so excited! At least I know you guys can understand me! : )

  11. I don’t want to encourage people not to follow the recipe, and I know that often Dorie’s unusual tricks work out great, but if bread crumbs seem as out of place in blueberry pie to you as they do to me, you might consider graham cracker crumbs instead, a trick that Cooks Illustrated uses.

  13. I’ve used bread crumbs before, and honestly, you don’t even taste them IF: (1) you use a plain white bread, nothing flavored, artisinal or fancy (a homemade white loaf that’s soft and not too crusty is fine), (2) the bread crumbs are finely ground.

  19. Pie crusts are not so difficult, there are just a few things to keep in mind:
    1) Be sure to keep the butter and shortening really cold. Put the dough back into the refrigerator any time it seems to be getting too warm.
    2) If you don’t add enough water to the dough, it will be dry, crumbly, and very hard to roll out. If you add too much, it will be sticky and hard to roll out. If you overwork the dough once you’ve added water, it will get tough. So…add the minimum amount of water and process just briefly. At this point I take the cover off the food processor and check the consistency of the dough. Add just a little more water if needed and process very briefly. At this point I usually take the bowl off the food processor and finish bringing the dough together with a small or medium-sized spatula. Sprinkle in tiny amounts of water as needed. It is better to have the dough a touch too wet than a touch too dry. This is the one part of making pie dough where experience really helps. After you’ve done it a few times you will know just how the dough should feel.
    3) Letting the dough rest (in the fridge) before you roll it out is very important. Letting it rest afterwards is helpful but not quite as crucial. Keep it cold!
    4) If you’ve chilled the dough a long time before rolling it out, you may have to let it warm up a bit first. But, keep it cold! As you roll out the dough, keep turning it around, that helps to keep it more even. Hey, it doesn’t have to be perfect!
    5) Try not to stretch out the dough as you fit it into the pie pan. Lift up the edge and ease the dough down into the pan gently, then press into place. Otherwise it will tend to shrink back a lot when you bake it.

    I’ve made a lot of pie crusts, and Dorie’s recipe looks like a good one and has really good directions. Go for it!

  21. Did anyone else see Zoe’s tutorial on pie crust 101 here? http://zoebakes.com/?p=640

    Does this recipe call for Dorie’s good for anything pie crust? If so I made the dough just last night (before I saw the challenge).

    I have a cherry tree groaning with fruit just outside (complete novelty for a girl from the tropics like me).

  23. I am so jazzed for this pie because Mr. fwad wanted me to make the blueberry pie right away. It was the first recipe from the book that wowed him. We are in the throws of blueberry season here right now in upstate NY so the timing is PERFECT.

  24. this is perfect for my 4th of july dessert! i was going to make a cobbler since we just did it but now i will attempt the full on pie instead.

  27. Amy, if you have access to fresh berries definitely use fresh. They’ll taste a lot better. Try your local farmers’ markets.

    This blueberry pie is perfect for 4th of July. Happy 4th everyone!

  28. I made this a few weeks ago for a BBQ I went to, but will probably try it again for the 4th.

    few tips-
    1- Cut down on the citrus zest/juice. It was much stronger a flavor than I prefer in my berry pies.
    2- The bread crumbs weren’t noticeable at all.
    3- I’d suggest keeping the top crust whole. I latticed it, and the juice bubbled up over the lattice edges. not enough to spill out of the pie tin, but it definitely cut down on the aesthetics.

  29. i am def using frozen berries, trader joes northwest blueberries bag is sweeter than any fresh i have had…even during peak season here in CA, frozen is still sweeter. i don’t even bother with fresh anymore, so sad.

  32. Carrie and Jules — “a pint is a pound” only if you are measuring water! Berries are much less dense than water. I suspect you’ll find a pound is about 4 cups or two pints but you’ll have to experiment for yourself.

  33. Amy – frozen works just fine, and like a previous poster, I’ve had better luck with those wild frozen Trader Joe’s berries than the fresh ones that I have found around here.

    DO NOT THAW THE BERRIES. Yup, just use them frozen, and toss them with the other ingredients and pop them in the pie shell. You may have to add a tad more flour/cornstarch (don’t remember what the recipe calls for).

    My experience with fruit pies is that they need to cool off a bit so that the filling “sets.” Straight out of the oven, they are a juicy mess.

  34. I can’t wait to make this! I absolutely love blueberry pie, husband – not so much (or at all) so I rarely make it. This is the perfect excuse, and maybe it will be so amazing, husband will end up liking blueberry pie, a girl can dream, right?

  35. Andrea, he obviously has not had the RIGHT blueberry pie before! Here is your chance. :)

    I was intro’d to blueberry pie a few years ago at this amazing local Creamery and they do pies for holiday so we always get ours there. Hopefully this year I will be making my OWN!

  36. I’ve made this pie twice already and the breadcrumbs are not an issue at all. You won’t even know they are there in terms of flavor or texture but they do keep the bottom crust from getting too soggy. I know use them in all my juicy fruit pies. Graham is probably fine too but you can just use some leftover stale bread (or crisp in the oven) and put in the food processor as opposed to buying something else. Just my two cents.

  38. Haven’t made it yet, but from looking at the recipe, the dough does have a fair amount of butter. Most of the “standard” pie crust recipes have 1/3 cup of fat (5 1/3 tablespoons) for every 1 cup of flour. My own favorite recipe has about 6.5 tablespoons of fat per cup of flour. This recipe has 8.4 tablespoons of fat per cup of flour which is about as high as you’d want to go–any more and the dough doesn’t hold its shape well.

  39. Is it just me, or was there a lot of leftover crust dough? I used a standard 9″ Pyrex pan and had enough dough left over to make a rustic strawberry tart. One think I’ll do differently next time: Add the juice and the zest to the berries and toss them very well before adding the dry ingredients. This was delicious!

  40. Jules, I haven’t made this yet but I notice it calls for 3 cups of flour. I generally make piecrust with only 2 1/2 cups of flour and that makes enough for my deep-dish pie pan. So I’m not surprised you had crust left over!

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