Lattice-Topped Blueberry Pie (and another great pastry recipe...with a twist!)

For a girl who wasn't very fond of pie growing up, I am certainly making up for lost time.  Although it's not yet blueberry season, there were some tasty looking imports on sale this week at the Superstore so I decided that Blueberry Pie would be this year's Father's Day dessert (with approval from the Father, of course).  I also decided that I would break in my brand new America's Test Kitchen Complete Cookbook that I got as a Mother's Day present at the same time.  While I didn't (yet) make the Blueberry Pie from that book, I did try their All-Butter Pie Dough with a couple variations based on the ingredients I had on hand (I could almost see Christopher Kimball himself giving me a look of disapproval as I subbed ingredients, but it turned out fantastic, one of the best pie crusts I have ever made!).  Next time I will cover the edges with foil for half of the time as there were so many blueberries in this pie it took them longer than I expected to cook down and the pie edges got a bit too dark, although still very flaky and delicious :)

The twist to this pastry is that it contains Greek yogurt (original recipe called for sour cream).  According to ATK, the acidity from it helps slow down gluten production, resulting in a flakier crust... it worked!

My Blueberry Pie


3 dry pints fresh blueberries, washed
juice and zest of 1/2 a lemon
3 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Pie crust for a double crust pie (see below for the great one I used)

Egg and 1 tbsp milk for egg wash

Sugar for crust

In a large bowl, combine all of the filling ingredients and stir to combine.  Set aside and roll out bottom crust of pastry and lay into a 9 inch pie pan, leaving 3/4 inch of pastry remaining.  Fill pie with the berry mixture and set in the fridge while making the lattice tops.

To make lattice, simply roll out the pastry as if you were making a regular top crust, cut into 8 pieces a bit shy of an inch wide.  I had (I think it's called) a ravioli cutter that I bought at Winners years back, which made the crinkle cut you see on my lattice strips.  Remove pie from fridge and place four strips running up and down and then weave the other four strips side to side.  Crimp the edges together like you would any other pie and set the pie back into the fridge to firm up while you preheat the oven.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees and then remove pie from fridge (again), brush with eggwash (the egg and milk beaten together) and then sprinkle generously with sugar.  Cover edges of pie with foil (which I didn't do and regret) and bake for 60-70 minutes, removing foil strips about half way through baking.   It's going to bubble over, so you might want to set a baking sheet on the lower rack, put down some foil, or plan on cleaning your oven afterwards.

Let the pie cool completely before serving.  I waited about 3 hours with this pie, but it was still a wee bit runny... at about 4 hours after baking the consistency was perfect!


All-Butter Pastry w/ Greek Yogurt
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen

1/3 cup ice water
3 tablespoons plain fat free (or regular) Greek yogurt
12.5 oz (2.5 cups) cake/pastry flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and frozen for 10-15 minutes

Combine ice water and Greek yogurt, set aside.  In a food processor, combine flour, sugar and salt.  Pulse to combine and then add the frozen butter pieces.  Pulse until the largest bits of butter are like small peas.  Then add 1/2 of the water and yogurt mixture and pulse two or three times to combine.  Now add the remaining liquid and pulse just until it starts to come together in a coarse crumb, it will not be a ball.  On counter, put out two large pieces of plastic wrap out and put half of the crumbs on each piece then bring the corners of the wrap up together to form the a ball with the dough inside.  Twist the plastic wrap so it is airtight and flatten each ball into a disc.  Place the two discs into the fridge for an hour to relax before rolling it out.  Bring the dough out of the fridge 10 minutes before you are going to roll it to allow it to soften slightly.

Enjoy!