Blueberry Pie

There are good days and there are less good days and on rare occasions I feel like superwoman! The good days involve managing to take a shower and/or actually finishing a cup of tea or coffee and not finding numerous half drunk cups all over the house and the end of the day. Of course every day is a great day as I get to spend it with our 13 week old boy Alexander. But there can be more challenging days where my husband can come home to find both Alexander and I in tears on the sitting room floor surrounded by a mess of a billion teddy bears, toys and books, none of which did any good as he is just too small still. On the rare days, I award myself the title of ‘superwoman’. These days involve being extremely organised and highly motivated, which mean that the laundry is done, the house is clean and sometimes a little bit of baking has been achieved.

The day that I made this pie, was one such day. After nappy changes and feeding, our little guy went down for his morning nap like an angel so I raced downstairs, put the oven on and started on baking a pie. That day I seemed to get everything done, and also got to see some good friends who I work with for a catch up (with Alexander in tow of course) and a little Alexander cuddle. It was a good day!

I rarely make a pie. I always think it is more of an American thing to make pie. I’ve actually only made it once before ( not including apple pie of course) when my father was here visiting last year and had bought an immense amount of stone fruits and then left it all here, so I made a pie. It was somewhat successful but I have been itching to make a better one ever since.

But like I said, I feel really good. I managed to not only be a pretty good mum this week, but also to bake and finally see friends after weeks of feeling somewhat isolated. It is amazing how an hour of talking about something other than parenting, can be so rejuvenating. Don’t get me wrong, I adore being Alexander’s mum and his existence in our lives is a miracle and a blessing but discussing the colour of your son’s dirty nappies with absolutely everyone you come across does not make you very popular and so from time to time adult conversation is a must have.

Anyway I’m not a fan of overly sweet things, and so this was perfect to curb my cravings. Short crumbly pastry filled with buckets of gorgeous blueberries which are ever so lightly flavoured with lemon, nutmeg and cinnamon. I think this is by far the best thing I have baked since making Alexander.

BLUEBERRY PIE

You can of course use fresh berries for this recipe but I find the frozen Irish blueberries at my local store are far more inexpensive and it’s just handy to have frozen (even with the best intentions, there are just some days that turn into weeks, that I don’t get around to actually baking).

• 1 quantity of my Shortcrust Pastry
• or 500 g ready-made shortcrust pastry
• 700 g frozen blueberries, defrosted overnight and drained of excess liquid
• 30 g plain flour
• 25 g cornflour
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• 150 g caster sugar
• knob of butter for greasing
• 1 tbsp flour for dusting
• 1 egg to glaze
• 1 tsp Demerara sugar

THE HOW

Heat the oven to 190 C fan oven

Grease a pie dish with the butter. Add the 1 tbsp of flour and gently roll the flour around the dish to line/dust it. Tip out any excess.

Roll out half the dough and line the pie dish. Trim the edges with a knife (or scissors). Keep the off cuts and squish them back together to use later if needed.

Chill in the fridge while you get the filling ready.

Mix the flour, lemon zest, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl. Add the drained blueberries to the bowl and give it a good stir, making sure there are no pockets of flour and set aside.

Next roll out the rest of the pastry, not too thin though (3-4mm).Remove the chilled lined pie dish  and pour your blueberries in and now start your top layer.  Now this is the part that is up to you. I chose a lattice top to my pie, some like to cut out shapes and adorn the top with leaves and flowers and some like to simply layer a flat sheet of pastry on top and makes little slits for air to release. Really the design is up to you, and there are just so many ways to decorate it.

Brush the top with an egg wash and sprinkle with Demerara sugar.

Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes. The crust should be golden brown and the blueberries should be bubbling. Keep an eye on it during the bake.

Best served just slightly warm (about 20 minutes from removing from the oven) with a nice dollop of fresh whipped cream or ice cream.