It was my son’s birthday a few weeks ago, and I was asking him what he wanted for his party. He said, “Mom, could we have pie instead of cake?” 😍 Child after my own heart. “Of course mommy will make you pie for your birthday,” I crooned. He requested blueberry pie and cherry pie, and since I’d been dying to try a new banana pudding pie recipe, I made that too. More on those other pies later.
To be honest with you, blueberry pie has historically been my absolute favorite pie. My love of pie turned into an obsession after I went blueberry picking (several years ago now) and baked a blueberry pie with the fresh picked berries.
You have not lived until you have had a fresh-picked blueberry pie. The summer sun ripens them to peak perfection just as you pick them. Each blueberry is like a flavor explosion; they taste like conventional blueberries, but have 10 times the flavor – and oh so tangy! A perfect pie fruit.
Plus, blueberry pie is practically a health food. Aside from the wheat and sugar, the majority of the ingredients are super nutritious (that would be all the blueberries).
In lieu of sun-ripened, farm fresh, handpicked blueberries, you may use store-bought organic blueberries. Still pretty good. If they lack that punch of flavor, I have a remedy below. So, as per my son’s birthday request, I now present you Justin’s blueberry pie. Grab a friend, and let’s bake!
Ingredients for Blueberry Pie:
- For the crust, follow my basic crust recipe
- 4 cups (32 oz) of blueberries
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (1/2 of a lemon should produce this)- optional
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/3 cup flour
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
Instructions for Blueberry Pie
- Prepare the dough for the crust and chill it while you prep your filling. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
- Wash and taste the berries. If they are very tart, omit the lemon juice. Sometimes I even add a few more tablespoons of sugar if they are very sour. If they are mild or sweet, be sure to add the fresh lemon juice.
- In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the sugars, flour, cornstarch, and cinnamon. Toss the mixture in with the blueberries, add the lemon juice and stir to coat the berries.
- Roll out your bottom crust, drop in the filling, and add the top crust. Seal and vent the pie (make a few slits in the top crust). Add your egg wash (1 egg slightly beaten) with a pastry brush.
- Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce to 375 for another 30-45 minutes. You know the pie is done when the crust is a delightful golden brown, and the filling is bubbling.
You’re done!
Be sure to drop us a line if you get a chance to try the recipe. Interested in more pie recipes? Check them out here. I’ll add the recipes for the cherry pie and the banana pudding pie in the next few weeks!
Pro tips
- Quality of the fruit matters. If you taste your berries, and they are bland, well… that might affect the pie flavor and you may want to wait until you have a better batch. Freeze them and put them in your next smoothie. Here’s why: you get out what you put in. Pie is all about making the fruit the star of the show. If the fruit is bad, the show is bad.
- Never let berries sit around wet. That’s when they get smushy, and no one wants to eat them anymore. Here’s an article on how to select and store blueberries.
- I used cookie cutters to cut my son’s name out of the top crust, and used the letter “I” to ‘underline’ his name.
- Always place the pie on a foil-lined baking sheet before putting it in the oven. This way, if the pie bubbles over the edge of the pie plate (Justin’s pie did), cleanup is a breeze. It also makes it easier to pull the pie out of the oven.