Blueberry Pie

Although it is still probably rainy season, I am starting to feel like summer is upon us. With the coming of summer, I was definitely in the mood for a summer dessert. More specifically, I really wanted some pie. I was wavering between lemon meringue and blueberry, so I turned to Y to make the final decision - blueberry won! By the time I had decided I wanted to make this, I couldn't call my mom for a recipe, due to the time difference, so I did what any modern girl looking to make a blueberry pie would do - I googled it. There are obviously a million different recipes, but the one I chose seemed interesting to me, due to the somewhat odd (to me) ingredients.

I read a lot of the reviews, and almost everyone suggested doubling the amount of cornstarch. I put in my 4 teaspoons, which seemed like a lot and got the fire cracking.

You are supposed to "rapidly heat" the water, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and salt until it thickens up. I did that, but as soon as I turned the heat off, the mixture turned into a nearly solid glob. I was none too pleased. It looked awful and I couldn't imagine at all how it would end up tasting in a pie. All I could imagine was globs of cornstarchy sugar mixed throughout beautiful blueberries.

I let it cool a little, but the more it cooled, the more nervous I got. I added the blueberries and lemon juice in earlier than instructed and mixed it like my life depended on it. The glob started to break down and I was feeling much better about the situation.

With that, I got to the pie crust. It calls for shortening, but I didn't have any so I used butter instead.

Just like any pie dough, you crumble the flour, sugar and butter together. Pretty standard.

Instead of my usual water at this point, the recipe called for a mixture of a beaten egg, vinegar and water. Hmmm...this is where I got concerned for the second time. That being said, this is also what intrigued me about the pie in the first place.

In the end, it came together nicely, I rolled it out (without chilling it as I normally would do) and popped it in the pie tin.

Next came the filling.

And last, the top. I imagine what I am about to confess is enough to make some people ill, but here it goes. One of my favorite parts of making a pie is taking the leftover raw dough, using it so spoon up the leftover drippings from the filling, and then of course eating it. Yum...cinnamon, sugar and apples - delish - I imagined a blueberry substitute would be just as lovely. The one bummer of this crust is that I am not all too comfortable eating raw egg and hence my pre-pie dessert didn't happen.

 

Anyway, the pie baked up beautifully and Y and I had a lovely dessert on Sunday evening after putting K to sleep. Sneaky sneaky, huh? The next day I went out to lunch with some neighborhood friends while the kiddos were at kindergarten. After lunch, we headed to my place for some blueberry pie dessert. Neither of the moms (both of whom are Japanese) had even heard of blueberry pie before. It is not a thing in Japan and yet, to be honest, that never dawned upon me. Needless to say, they liked it as well. Yea for summer and yea for blueberries!!