Lemon Blueberry Pie
I didn't used to be a big pie fan, it was always too blah-crusty tasting or something, but now I know that it's all in the recipe! Now I love Kent's Mom's apple pie, and there's really not much I wouldn't love in a classic graham cracker crust. When a reader mentioned her blueberry pie in a comment earlier this week, I had just gotten more farmers market blueberries… This gave me a craving and an idea: I wanted to try making a lemon blueberry pie — don't you just love those two flavors together?! I'm excited that it came out so tasty, and Kent loved it too. I couldn't get him to say it was even better than his Mom's apple pie though, because that one is his all-time favorite. 🙂
Sally Fallon says this in Nourishing Traditions
Lemon Blueberry Pie
Yield 1 pie
Try this a la mode with my lemon ice cream.
Ingredients
Crust:
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 12 Tablespoons cold butter, pastured butter is best
- 1/4 cup organic cane sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 4 Tablespoons cold water (have you read this post: Why we ditched reverse osmosis drinking water and what we got instead!)
Filling:
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup unbleached white flour
- Finely grated lemon peel from 1 whole lemon, I like a lot of lemon flavor! Organic lemons are best because citrus crops are sprayed a lot.
- A dash of salt
- About 4 1/2 cup fresh organic blueberries and toss to coat. (One recipe I looked at said you could also use a 20 ounce bag of frozen, but then increase flour to 1/3 cup)
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons cold butter
Instructions
- Add to your food processor to make a double crust: 2 cup flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 12 Tablespoons butter, 1/4 cup sugar. Blend 'til mixed well, add 1 egg yolk and blend more. Add cold water and blend until it forms a ball. If it feels dry, add a bit more water. If it feels too wet, add a bit more flour.
- Split dough in half and roll each out into a big circle onto a lightly floured countertop. Form one into the bottom of a pie plate, trim the sides, prick the bottom with a fork, and bake for 15 minutes at 300*. Cool.
- Make the filling — stir these ingredients together in a big bowl: 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, lemon peel, and a dash of salt. Add about blueberries and toss to coat.
- Once the bottom crust cools a little, spoon in the blueberry mixture.
- Squeeze about 1 teaspoon lemon juice over the top.
- Cut up about 2 teaspoons butter into little pieces and drop them around the top.
- Cover the pie with the other pie crust, pinch edges, trim sides, and make fun designs, whatever you'd like! (Mine never ends up real pretty and I end up patching pieces to cover holes…I never said I was a Martha!) UPDATE: My girlfriend gave me a great tip: Instead of trying to make the pie edges all pretty, just tuck them under and bake normally – everyone loves extra pieces of crust! It's so much prettier this way, for me anyway! If you really want to get fancy, you could make a lattice crust like the picture above. I've learned that it's not as tricky as it looks, there are lots of videos online to show you how to do it.
- Cover loosely with foil, bake at 375* for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake another 20-25 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
- Let cool before cutting, if you can…
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Now throw it together and let me know what you think!
photo by thebittenword.com and another
Great recipe, definitely worth of try! Just one question: Can I use something instead of cold butter, maybe unsweetened applesauce. What do you think?
Hi Felicia,
I’ve never tried that, but why wouldn’t you want to just use butter? It’s so good for us and makes the crust super yum. 🙂
Kelly
I use the least amount of sugar that I need. I don’t measure it, I gauge it by the sweetness of the berries. These berries were decently sweet, so I bet I only used a half to 3/4 cup. I also use the cane juice crystals rather than “white suger”. It’s still somewhat refined, but not as bad as “white death”.
Shauna
Shauna,
Does your recipe call for 1 c. of sugar like mine? It tasted dreamy, for sure, but I’m just wondering if any of you have made it with less sugar and how it came out.
Kelly
This recipe sounds a lot like mine! I make my crust with coconut oil though, and cut it in by hand rather than the food processer. I’ve done it both ways though. When I read that quote by Sally Fallon (“Desserts are something you should desrve”), it made me realize how much sweets have become a part of everyday life. So, I try to let the seasons guide our desserts. It also reminded me of how special a birthday cake used to be. The next treat will be peach cobbler with fresh picked Michigan peaches…..then later on, it will be apple pie! (Strawberry season kicks off pie season for us: Strawberry cream cheese tarte, then cherry pie, then blueberry pie, etc) The other thing that her comment reminded me of were all the old time festivals that came with the summer harvest: You know – when you can only get strawberries for a few weeks a year, that’s a reason to celebrate – and hold a festival!
Glad you enjoyed your pie!!! We finished up the rest of ours with last night’s dinner as well.