How To Make Blueberry Crumb Pie | Tasting Table Recipe
Blueberry pie inspired by Betsy Brandt's Michigan memories
Hey, welcome back to Summer Food Memories, a series we're doing in collaboration with Yahoo Food. We asked five interesting people to help us say goodbye to summer with some culinary nostalgia. We're developing recipes loosely inspired by their essays.
We relived summer camp with novelist Emma Straub's burger for lapsed vegetarians, ate soup for breakfast with chef Christian Puglisi, and mashed up the memories of Jon Shook and Vinny Detolo for cripsy potatoes with corn and malt vinegar.
For our final installment, actress Betsy Brandt (Breaking Bad, Masters of Sex) harkens back to her Michigan childhood and picking blueberries she'd pay for by the pound. Her grandmother then cooked them-and any other fruit at the ready-into pies "that were like her calling card."
Read on for the whole story, then hurry back to get a piece of the pie.
Recipe from the Tasting Table Test Kitchen
- For the crust
- 1½ cups flour, plus extra for rolling dough
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup lard cut into ½ inch cubes, chilled
- 5 tablespoons ice water
- For the Blueberry Filling
- 4 cups blueberries
- ¾ cup sugar
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- Zest of one lemon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- For the Oat Crumble
- ½ cup flour
- ½ cup oats
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp salt
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- ½ stick butter cut into ½-inch cubes, chilled
- Make the crust: Preheat oven to 375°. In a medium bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add lard and combine using a pastry cutter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add water, one tablespoon at a time, until dough holds together. Shapes into a ball and flatten into a disc. Wrap in plastic and place in refrigerator to chill for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make the blueberry filling: Combine all ingredients in a large bowl using your hands to combine, gently squeezing the blueberries as you mix. Set aside until ready to use.
- Make the oat crumble: Combine the flour, oats, cinnamon, salt and brown sugar. Using your hands or a pastry cutter, work the butter into the flour mixture until it becomes crumbly. Transfer crumble to freezer and chill for 30 minutes.
- To assemble pie, roll out dough to an ⅛" thickness on a floured work surface; transfer to a 10" pie plate, fold in overhanging dough and crimp edges. Fill with reserved blueberries, top with crumble and bake until the berries are bubbly and the top begins to turn golden brown, about an hour. Remove and allow to 20 minutes before serving.