A Genius Blueberry Pie Just in Time for the Summer Season

If you've ever cooked a blueberry for more than a minute, you know their fatal flaw.

A blueberry is really just a sack of tart-sweet juice, barely contained by a thin, taut orb of skin. It's nature's tiniest water balloon, and like any good water balloon, it wasn't designed to last.

So when we want to bake them into a pie, we know they're going to swell through their skins and surrender all their juice, which then needs to be jammed up with sugar and thickeners. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that—throw on a scoop of vanilla ice cream and it's not not going to get eaten.

 

But there's another sort of blueberry pie, one that uses a lighter touch, managing to preserve fresh blueberries in their natural state and ensconce them in a sauce—made, of course, from more burst blueberries. Fannie Farmer has one, and Sara Moulton does too. Evan Kleiman even took blogger Dorothy Reinhold's on TV to declare its genius.

I'm particularly fond of Rose Levy Beranbaum's version from The Pie and Pastry Bible. The filling has only 4 ingredients, and the highest blueberry retention rate of any I've tried—using the least sugar, the least cornstarch. 

"Here is what my thinking was behind it: Blueberries are such a great burst of flavor when raw but when cooked become soft and bitter requiring quite a bit of sugar," Beranbaum told me. "I also noticed that blueberries turn brilliant navy blue when heated only slightly, so my theory was I could just heat most of them and use the rest to bind them. And it worked as I had envisioned."

Here's How to Make It

1. Make the Crust 

Make whatever single pie crust. You can use your go-to ratios, or I've included Beranbaum's recipe, which is excellent, and has all sorts of clever tricks.

 

She uses pastry flour and vinegar for less gluten development and a more delicate crust, baking powder for a little extra lift. She freezes part of the butter, and bashes it into the flour with a rolling pin. It takes a cue from our favorite parts of laminated dough—layers upon layers, absurdly delicate flake—and makes the process much more manageable (with all the upside).

Whatever dough recipe you use, you'll just roll one out, crimp it or not, and blind bake it. You can brush on some egg white for extra insurance (read: no soggy bottoms in sight), but you don't really need to.

 

2. Make the Blueberry Filling 

Then you'll take a quarter of your berry haul—this is your chance to weed out the soft ones—and cook them in a little water until they explode (about 3 minutes).

As they're bursting into a syrupy pulp, you whisk in a slurry of cornstarch and water, plus lemon and salt.

 

The rest of your berries get folded in next, off the heat, and they light up—from a low dusty blue to shimmering indigo in seconds.

3. Put it All Together 

Then you pour the cooked mixture in your pre-baked crust. And you're done.

The only hard part is waiting two hours to eat it. Get the full recipe for Rose Levy Beranbaum's Fresh Blueberry Pie here!

A Few More of Our Favorite Blueberry Baked Goods

1. Blueberry & Rye Slab Pie

The addition of rye flour in the crust lends this jammy slab pie an extra nuttiness that works really nicely with the blueberry filling's juicy sweetness. 

2. Blueberry Lemon Cake

Serve this light and fluffy blueberry cake, scented with bright lemon zest and juice, with whipped cream, a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, for breakfast with a cup of coffee, or (our favorite) next to a glass of ice-cold milk. 

3. Mom's Blueberry-Coconut Muffins

Coconut and blueberry are a match made in heaven, and these tender muffins—which just so happen to be a contest winner for (you guessed it) Your Best Muffins—are proof. 

4. Blueberry Schlumpf

Ooey gooey and oh-so magical, this blueberry schlumpf comes together in just five ingredients. Enjoy a heaping spoonful fresh out of the oven with vanilla ice cream and you won't be sorry. 

5. Blueberry & Cherry Buckle With Cornmeal–Poppy Seed Streusel

Don't be shy about playing around with the ingredients in this summer-ready buckle: Use all blueberries if you like, or even swap out the cherries for small-diced peaches. 

 

Rose Levy Beranbaum photo by Matthew Septimus, all other photos by James Ransom

Got a genius recipe to share—from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected].

This article was updated by the Food52 editors in June 2020 to include more ways to use up all those fresh summer blueberries.