Mini Blueberry Pi(e)
Happy Pi Day, everyone! For those unaware, today is Pi Day (March 14, or 3.14), and this year is a very special Pi day, as we get two more digits: 3.1415. In honor of Pi Day and at the risk of being slightly cliche, we are making Blueberry Hand Pies. Yum! And, like the number pi going on and on and on, this recipe is a doozy!
Pie is marvelous. My grandpa used to always say that he only liked two kinds of pie: hot pie and cold pie. Which really is to say that all pie is good pie. In fact, I've met very few people who don't like pie and their moral character was also somewhat suspect. I'm not saying that disliking pie makes you a bad person. It's just an interesting correlation, don't you think?
Making pie is tricky business though, mainly because of the crust. Pie crust is intimidating. A good pie crust is flaky and tender and buttery and wonderful, but it takes a skilled hand to make that happen. That being said: Don't be afraid! I'm using a wonderful cream cheese pie crust that is much easier to work with and still has all the things everyone loves about traditional pie crust. Plus, it has cream cheese. If you haven't figured out by now, I love cream cheese. You know the jokes about Paula Deen and butter? It's kind of like that.
But enough about me, let's jump right into these scrumptious hand-held babies!
We'll start with the crust, which is based on the Perfect Flaky Cream Cheese Pastry from Wicked Good Kitchen.
Gather your ingredients and please note that the cream cheese and butter are both chilled. A lot of baking requires softened or room temperature butter, but part of what makes pie crust so tricky is that it needs to be cold to work properly. So put your butter and cream cheese into the bowl of your stand mixer and mix them up. Resist the urge to lick the cream cheese wrapper.
While they are mixing, measure out your flour and set it aside. (You don't need a picture of a bowl of flour; you know what that should look like.)
When your cream cheese and butter are mixed up to the point that you can no longer tell that they were previously blocks of two different things, add your sugar, salt, and vanilla, and then mix it up again. You will probably need to scrape down the sides of the bowl at least once in this whole mixing process.
When that's all nice and evenly mixed, add in your flour, half of it at a time, and mix it up just until it's incorporated. It'll probably look crumbly, and that's okay.
Pour transfer the dough to some plastic wrap (a spatula will probably be helpful here), pat it into a disc, and wrap it up. Because pie crust has to be cold, refrigerate it for at least an hour before you use it.
After you've let your pie crust cool for a while (maybe even overnight), start your blueberry filling. This filling is based on this recipe from Taste of Home. I used frozen blueberries, though, which works just fine.
I didn't take a picture of the water because you know what water looks like, and also if you are cooking where you don't have access to all the water you want, you should find a new place to cook.
Combine the sugar, cornstarch salt and water in a medium saucepan on medium heat. As it heats up, whisk it smooth.
When it's smooth, add a little more than half the blueberries and turn the heat up just a little. Stir and heat until it's boiling, bubbly, thick, and the liquid is no longer cloudy.
Add the rest of your blueberries and cook just a little longer. Remove the whole pan from the burner and add the butter and lemon juice. Stir it until the butter is all melted and then let the whole thing cool some.
Now comes the fun part. Get your crust dough out of the fridge and let it sit for a couple of minutes. While it comes to temperature do a couple things: line your baking sheets with parchment paper, and find your circle to cut the pies, and flour your work surface.
To cut out the crusts, I actually just used a plastic container, a little over 4 inches in diameter. You can make your crusts bigger or smaller than this, but remember to also adjust the amount of filling.
After you've cut your circles, lay them out on your prepared sheet and put a small amount of filling in the middle. Pinch the circles shut and crimp around the open side.
When the tray is full, put it in the refrigerator while you work on the rest. After all the pies are filled, brush them with an egg wash (one egg and approximately 1 tablespoon of water, mixed well), and cut vents in them.
Bake them!
Now, when you pull them out of the oven, you may see that they have spewed some of their wonderful contents onto the parchment. They may even have leaked some before you even got them into the oven. You may pull them out of the oven and involuntarily wail because they look so ugly and you worked so hard. DON'T PANIC! And don't throw them out. Set them on a cooling rack and let them cool off a little. Think about this: the same grandpa previously mentioned also thought that a pie that cooks out tastes better. And it helps the consumers know what kind of pie they're getting because it's visible.
When they've cooled slightly (or a lot, depending how much time you need to calm down if the pies look monstrous), mix up the glaze.
A little powdered sugar, a little milk, a little vanilla, and stir, stir, stir. Your glaze should uncomfortably remind you of Elmer's glue. Not that sticky, but that consistency. Drizzle the glaze over the pastries.
More bakery magic! Even ugly pies are decently pretty! And tastier, too! Crisis averted!
Now you can eat pie and think about measuring circles!
Note: This makes a LOT of filling. You may want to make larger circles that can hold more filling or consider doubling the dough recipe. I actually made a handful of little pies, ran out of patience (Pippin kept begging me to play fetch, and I decided that was more important than thousands of tiny pies), and made one big pie with the rest of the filling.
Cream Cheese Pie Crust
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup chilled unsalted butter
1 package chilled cream cheese
1 tablespoon granulated cane sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add sugar, vanilla, and salt. Beat until smooth. Add flour in two equal increments, mixing just until incorporated.
Turn dough out onto plastic wrap and pat into a disc. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least one hour.
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cold water
5 cups fresh blueberries, divided
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice
In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, water and salt over medium heat until smooth.
Stir in 3 cups of blueberries and bring to a boil. Reduce heat back to medium and continue cooking until sauce thickens and is no longer cloudy. Add remaining blueberries and cook for an additional minute. Remove from heat and add butter and lemon juice. Stir until butter is melted.
Construction of Pies
Remove crust dough from fridge and allow to sit for about 10 minutes. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Roll dough with floured rolling pin until it is approximately 1/8 of an inch thick.
Cut into 4-inch diameter circles, re-rolling the dough as necessary.
On a parchment-lined baking sheet, place dough circles and fill with approximately 1/2 Tablespoon of filling each.
Moisten the edge of the dough circles with water and fold over, pressing to seal. Refrigerate completed pies until ready to bake.
Brush pies with egg wash and cut vents in the top.
Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.
Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk with a fork until smooth. Drizzle over hand pies.
Pie is marvelous. My grandpa used to always say that he only liked two kinds of pie: hot pie and cold pie. Which really is to say that all pie is good pie. In fact, I've met very few people who don't like pie and their moral character was also somewhat suspect. I'm not saying that disliking pie makes you a bad person. It's just an interesting correlation, don't you think?
Making pie is tricky business though, mainly because of the crust. Pie crust is intimidating. A good pie crust is flaky and tender and buttery and wonderful, but it takes a skilled hand to make that happen. That being said: Don't be afraid! I'm using a wonderful cream cheese pie crust that is much easier to work with and still has all the things everyone loves about traditional pie crust. Plus, it has cream cheese. If you haven't figured out by now, I love cream cheese. You know the jokes about Paula Deen and butter? It's kind of like that.
But enough about me, let's jump right into these scrumptious hand-held babies!
We'll start with the crust, which is based on the Perfect Flaky Cream Cheese Pastry from Wicked Good Kitchen.
Gather your ingredients and please note that the cream cheese and butter are both chilled. A lot of baking requires softened or room temperature butter, but part of what makes pie crust so tricky is that it needs to be cold to work properly. So put your butter and cream cheese into the bowl of your stand mixer and mix them up. Resist the urge to lick the cream cheese wrapper.
While they are mixing, measure out your flour and set it aside. (You don't need a picture of a bowl of flour; you know what that should look like.)
When your cream cheese and butter are mixed up to the point that you can no longer tell that they were previously blocks of two different things, add your sugar, salt, and vanilla, and then mix it up again. You will probably need to scrape down the sides of the bowl at least once in this whole mixing process.
When that's all nice and evenly mixed, add in your flour, half of it at a time, and mix it up just until it's incorporated. It'll probably look crumbly, and that's okay.
Pour transfer the dough to some plastic wrap (a spatula will probably be helpful here), pat it into a disc, and wrap it up. Because pie crust has to be cold, refrigerate it for at least an hour before you use it.
After you've let your pie crust cool for a while (maybe even overnight), start your blueberry filling. This filling is based on this recipe from Taste of Home. I used frozen blueberries, though, which works just fine.
 |
| Not Pictured: Water |
Combine the sugar, cornstarch salt and water in a medium saucepan on medium heat. As it heats up, whisk it smooth.
 |
| Not smooth... yet |
 |
| Not ready... |
 |
| Ready! |
Now comes the fun part. Get your crust dough out of the fridge and let it sit for a couple of minutes. While it comes to temperature do a couple things: line your baking sheets with parchment paper, and find your circle to cut the pies, and flour your work surface.
To cut out the crusts, I actually just used a plastic container, a little over 4 inches in diameter. You can make your crusts bigger or smaller than this, but remember to also adjust the amount of filling.
After you've cut your circles, lay them out on your prepared sheet and put a small amount of filling in the middle. Pinch the circles shut and crimp around the open side.
When the tray is full, put it in the refrigerator while you work on the rest. After all the pies are filled, brush them with an egg wash (one egg and approximately 1 tablespoon of water, mixed well), and cut vents in them.
Bake them!
Now, when you pull them out of the oven, you may see that they have spewed some of their wonderful contents onto the parchment. They may even have leaked some before you even got them into the oven. You may pull them out of the oven and involuntarily wail because they look so ugly and you worked so hard. DON'T PANIC! And don't throw them out. Set them on a cooling rack and let them cool off a little. Think about this: the same grandpa previously mentioned also thought that a pie that cooks out tastes better. And it helps the consumers know what kind of pie they're getting because it's visible.
When they've cooled slightly (or a lot, depending how much time you need to calm down if the pies look monstrous), mix up the glaze.
A little powdered sugar, a little milk, a little vanilla, and stir, stir, stir. Your glaze should uncomfortably remind you of Elmer's glue. Not that sticky, but that consistency. Drizzle the glaze over the pastries.
Now you can eat pie and think about measuring circles!
Note: This makes a LOT of filling. You may want to make larger circles that can hold more filling or consider doubling the dough recipe. I actually made a handful of little pies, ran out of patience (Pippin kept begging me to play fetch, and I decided that was more important than thousands of tiny pies), and made one big pie with the rest of the filling.
Cream Cheese Pie Crust
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup chilled unsalted butter
1 package chilled cream cheese
1 tablespoon granulated cane sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add sugar, vanilla, and salt. Beat until smooth. Add flour in two equal increments, mixing just until incorporated.
Turn dough out onto plastic wrap and pat into a disc. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least one hour.
Blueberry Filling
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cold water
5 cups fresh blueberries, divided
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice
In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, water and salt over medium heat until smooth.
Stir in 3 cups of blueberries and bring to a boil. Reduce heat back to medium and continue cooking until sauce thickens and is no longer cloudy. Add remaining blueberries and cook for an additional minute. Remove from heat and add butter and lemon juice. Stir until butter is melted.
Construction of Pies
Remove crust dough from fridge and allow to sit for about 10 minutes. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Roll dough with floured rolling pin until it is approximately 1/8 of an inch thick.
Cut into 4-inch diameter circles, re-rolling the dough as necessary.
On a parchment-lined baking sheet, place dough circles and fill with approximately 1/2 Tablespoon of filling each.
Moisten the edge of the dough circles with water and fold over, pressing to seal. Refrigerate completed pies until ready to bake.
Brush pies with egg wash and cut vents in the top.
Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.
Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk with a fork until smooth. Drizzle over hand pies.
Those look great! Hey, did you know my birthday is next week? Also an interesting correlation, don't you think?
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