Here's Pie in your Eye

You know, some people have yoga... some people knit. For me, nothing is a bigger stress reliever than cooking. I say cooking, rather than baking, because baking is just sometimes just as stressful as the stress I'm trying to get rid of.

But a friend of mine has been hounding me to bake him a blueberry pie... yeah, yeah... and we all heard Cartman just then, with that general directive. And, let me tell you, I've never baked a fruit pie in my LIFE. But, I've always bragged that, if you can eat it, I can pretty much cook it... so I took up the challenge.

I did what any good cook does when faced with a cooking (baking) dilemma... I took it to Google. I did a search for "blueberry pie." You see, down here in the South, there aren't a lot of blueberry pies being baked. In fact, I've never even eaten one before... and that's even having after growing up with a Yankee daddy. Of course, Mom considers anyone north of Little Rock a Yankee, so that's another story for another blog post. But anyway... back to the pie.

My search results were vast and varied!! Some had the pies where you baked the berries first. Others had the pie where you had to cook by the light of the harvest moon while standing on one foot, chanting the Preamble to the Constitution... well, maybe not THAT difficult, but you get the idea.

What I did find was a recipe from the Joy of Baking website that was pretty easy, and it came with a video!

What I liked best about the recipe was the list of ingredients:

4 cups Blueberries (and I used (GASP!) the big bag of frozen blueberries from the grocery store. And I thawed them out with cool water in a colander)
1/2 cup Sugar
2 Tblsp Cornstarch
2 Tblsp Lemon Juice
1 Tblsp Lemon Zest (Another gadgety thing I absolutely LOVE is a narrow microplane zester. I don't use it often, but for things like this, it's PERFECT)

But that's it, folks! Those were all the ingredients needed to fill my blueberry pie. Yeah, well, I needed pie crust too, but that's for another post, when I have had a totally stress-free day and can tackle the crust part of it.  So, for this little experiment, I used a store-bought crust and the roll up Pillsbury crust for the topping.

In my beloved big silver mixing bowl, I whisked together the sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and zest. I then poured in the berries after draining them really well and made sure to coat all the berries with the mixture. Afterwards, I poured the sauced-up berries into the thawed pie crust.

I made a quick egg wash with one large egg yolk and about 2 Tblsp milk. I took my pastry brush and quickly brushed the edges of the pie with the wash. I wasn't careful, and if some slipped over, I didn't stress out... Can I tell you again, this is my YOGA!!! So I assumed the crouching baker, hidden egg wash position and finished brushing the edges of the pie. Then I stuck the pie in the fridge.

While the pie was chilling out, I took out my handy pastry mat, brushed it with flour and unrolled my top crust. The pretty pie on the website was covered in these cute little stars, and if the lady on the internet can do it, well darn it, so can I.  I grabbed a cookie cutter and cut out about a galaxy of stars, or at least two or three constellations, placing them on a plate and covering them with a moist towel. When I was running low, I took my rolling pin and rolled out the scraps (and I really felt like a REAL baker, then!!) and then cut out the rest.

I took my pie out of the fridge, placed it on a cookie sheet and preheated the oven to 400 degrees. Then I began to arrange my pretty little stars, going around the pie first, pinching the little corners against the edge, and worked my way in. Once I was finished, with tears in my eyes at just how dang cute it was, I brushed the whole deal with the egg wash.

Then I placed the cookie sheet in the oven and let it work its magic for about 20 minutes. Then I kicked it down to 350 for another 35-40 minutes. If the crust starts to get too brown, cover the edges with foil. You can buy one of those pie-edge things, but I just made one with some foil. It WILL bubble up, so make sure you use a cookie sheet, or you'll have a mess.

Once it's all golden-brown and bubbly, take it out of the oven and let it cool for a couple of hours. DON'T CUT IT!!!!  Even though it looks so good you just want to take a knife to it right away... like a mad, pie-eating ninja.

Let it sit for a good while, meaning, make this before lunch and eat it after dinner. It takes a while for the juices to congeal a little bit and hold together when you slice it. But, I promise you, it is so totally worth it. The lemon adds just enough zing to the berries, and the crust is amazingly yummy. And, of course, you can't THINK of serving this without ice cream, so add that to your grocery list when you go out and pick up the berries. I'd be willing to bet you have the rest of this stuff in your pantry already.

Happy eating, folks!!! And, keep it stress-free... what's the fun of cooking (ok... BAKING), if you're too stressed out to reap the rewards of your efforts?

As always, please leave your comments... this is my first time with a blog and I love getting feedback. Even if it's just to tell me that I use too many ellipses...

Also, if you want to watch the video, or get the recipe for the pastry dough, go to this site: http://www.joyofbaking.com/BlueberryPie.html. It was totally helpful!!

Marissa