Best Blueberry Pie with Foolproof Pie Dough

Best Blueberry Pie with Foolproof Pie Dough

Cook's Illustrated (July/August 2008)

Once a year, when blueberries come in season, we binge.

It always starts the same way, with an innocent trip to the grocery store, and suddenly, out of nowhere, pints of blueberries are buy-one-get-one-free, and we load up.

We eat them by the handfuls in the morning. We make muffins. We serve them with sherbet (which you'll see in an upcoming post). And this year, after reading the most recent Cook's, we were determined to make a pie.

But before we get to the pie, let's talk about the crust made with Cook's Foolproof Pie Dough, and its one surprise ingredient.

Foolproof Pie Dough is a recipe that has appeared in the magazine before, but is well worth being reprinted. The crust is much like other pie crusts, with flour, salt, sugar, butter, shortening and water.

But Cook's has found that by substituting half of the water with vodka, you can avoid a tough pie crust and consistently get a tender, flaky crust.

You can hear Jack Bishop -- of America's Test Kitchen -- talk about the pie crust and explain why vodka works so well on a recent episode of Good Food with Evan Kleiman on KCRW. Never heard of Good Food? Prepare to sacrifice an hour of each week for now on.

(We discovered the show's podcast on iTunes a little over a year ago. It focuses mostly on food trends, farmers markets and restaurants in Southern California, but even if you don't live in SoCal, it's well worth your time. Kleiman -- the chef at LA's Angeli Caffee -- is a treat to listen to and continually brings in a bevy of amazing guests. You can hear the entire segment about the pie dough on KCRW.com/GoodFood. While you're there, do yourself a favor and subscribe to their podcast.)

Cook's Blueberry Pie recipe is focused on creating a pie that sits up when sliced and does not turn into a runny mess, a common problem with blueberry pie since the berries have so much juice. The secret here is the addition of a peeled, grated Granny Smith apple and ground tapioca, which combine to thicken the filling but not interfere with the berries.

So did it work?

A resounding yes! The pie was, of course, delicious and the texture was firm, as advertised. We took issue, though, with the recipe's suggestions for cutting six discs out of the dough (see Cook's photo below) because the holes are so large that our crust had trouble staying together when sliced. But it still tasted amazing.

Honestly, the hardest thing about making this pie was waiting four hours for it to cool, which was torture because the entire house smelled like blueberry pie.

We're already looking forward to next year's blueberries.

Best Blueberry Pie with Foolproof Pie Dough
Cook's Illustrated (July/August 2008)
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(THIS PHOTO: Cook's Illustrated)

Foolproof Pie Dough

2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons sugar
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces
1/4 cup cold vodka
1/4 cup cold water

Blueberry Filling

6 cups fresh blueberries
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and grated on large holes of box grater
2 teaspoons grated zest and 2 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons instant tapioca, ground
Pinch table salt
2 tablespoons unsalted better, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1 large egg, lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water

1. FOR THE PIE DOUGH: Process 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until homogeneous dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds (dough will resemble cottage cheese curds and there should be no uncoated flour). Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade. Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses. Empty mixture into medium bowl.

2. Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together. Divide dough into two even balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.

3. Remove 1 disk of dough from the refrigerator and roll on generously floured (up to 1/4 cup) work surface to 12-inch circle, about 1/8 inch think. Roll dough loosely and rolling pin and unroll into pie plate, leaving at least 1-inch overhang on each side. Working around circumference, ease dough into plate by gently lifting edge of dough with one hand while pressing into plate bottom with other hand. Leave dough that overhangs plate in place; refrigerate while preparing filling until dough is firm, about 30 minutes.

4. FOR THE FILLING: Adjust oven rack to lowest position, place rimmed baking sheet on oven rack and heat oven to 400 degrees. Place 3 cups berries in medium saucepan and set over medium heat. Using potato masher, mash berries several times to release juices. Continue to cook, stirring frequently and mashing occasionally, until about half of berries have broken down and mixture is thickened and reduced to 1 1/2 cups, about 8 minutes. Let cool slightly.

5. Place grated apple in clean kitchen towel and wring dry. Transfer apple to large bowl. Add cooked berries, remaining 3 cups uncooked berries, lemon zest, juice, sugar, tapioca, and salt; toss to combine. Transfer mixture to dough-lined pie plate and scatter butter pieces over filling.

6. Roll out second disk of dough on generously floured (up to 1/4 cup) work surface to 11-inch circle, about 1/8 inch thick. Using 1 1/4 inch round biscuit cutter, cut round from center of dough. Cut around 6 rounds from dough, 1 1/2 inches from edge of center hole and equally spaced around center hole. Roll dough loosely around pin and unroll over pie, leaving at least 1/2 inch overhang on each side.

7. Using kitchen shears, trim bottom layer of overhanging dough, leaving 1/2-inch overhang. Fold dough under itself so that edge of fold is flush with outer rim of pie plate. Flute edges using thumb and forefinger or press with times of fork to seal. Brush top and edges of pie with egg mixture. If dough is very soft, chill in freezer for 10 minutes.

8. Place pie on heating baking sheet and bake 30 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue to bake until juice bubbles and crust is deep golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes longer. Transfer pie to wire rack; cool to room temperature, at least 4 hours. Cut into wedges and serve.

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Kenji,

We have some questions about your testing and the resulting pie crust. We would really appreciate your expertise and opinions.

A few of the members consider the dough to be almost too soft and therefore difficult to handle. They have experienced some tearing. We would appreciate your thoughts about this.

I have also seen a good discussion on your testing. There are many questions that may dictate further examination, or you may know the answers.

Mixing - Two Steps: Your recipe calls for processing about 2/3 of the flour to a homogenous dough. The remaining flour is pulsed to distribute.


Question 1. Is it important to full process to a smooth dough in the first step.

Question 2. Have you tested different ratios of four for the two steps.

Question 3. Have you tried leaf lard to replace the shortening? You should!



Adding Alcohol: Your recipe uses half water and half 80 proof vodka. This results in 6.4 ounces of water and 1.6 ounces of ethenol.

Question 4. Did you test changes in the ratio of water to alcohol?

Question 5. Did you test 100 proof vodka?

Question 6. Did you test using other liquors like rum, brandy, or whiskey?

Question 7. Did you test using low proof liqueurs like triple-sec or amaretto?


We are also aware of many old time recipes that included vinegar, supposedly to tenderize the dough. What do you know about this concept?

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Wow. Lots of questions. I'm glad everyone is so interested. Here's some answers:

Question 1: It is important to process it at least to the point where there is no dry flour remaining. It may still look a little chunky at this stage, but it won't have the dusty look of dry flour. The idea is that to create flakiness, you need two different elements in the pie crust at the right ratio: flour and water (which forms crisp sheets of gluten) and a flour/fat paste that acts to lubricate and separate the sheets of gluten into separate flakes as it bakes (In the case of a traditional pie crust, the fat/flour paste is also supplemented by little chunks of pure fat - testing showed that only the fat/flour paste was necessary, chunks of fat were redundant). Mixing in only part of the flour with the fat at the beginning before adding the rest of the flour guarantees (within reason) that the ratio of fatty flour to watery flour is the same every time.

Question 2: yes. We tested amounts from 1/3 of a cup blended first, remaining added, all the way up to 1 1/4 cup blended first.

Question 3: yes, but not too seriously. Since good lard is not available to most of our readers, our recipe can't call for it. For the record, CPK renders his own leaf lard in VT and swears by it in his pie crusts.

Question 4: yes. We were using straight up vodka for a while, but we found that there was a limit to how little gluten development you want and how moist the dough can be for easy rolling. We found that half and half gave us a good balance of both.

Question 5: yes. 100 proof vodka can be used. Just use 20% less vodka by volume, and add enough water to make up the difference.

Question 6: yes. We tried calvados, brandy, rum, and bourbon. All of them work to tenderize the crust just like the vodka. As long as the alcohol percentage is the same, you can substitute other liquors for the vodka with good results. Try making an apple pie w/ calvados or brandy, for example.

Question 7: no... but let me know if you do. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't work - just make sure you adjust the ratio of water/liquer in order to get the same final alcohol content as the original recipe or your dough may end up tough. You may also need to reduce the amount of sugar if you're using a very sweet liquer.

As for using vinegar and lemon juice, the idea is that gluten formation is inhibited at lower pH values. But through testing and research, we found that this is not the case. In fact, between a pH of 7 (neutral) and 5 (slightly acidic), gluten formation is actually increased. It's only after you get below a pH of 5 that gluten formation is inhibited. Unfortunately, this would require adding almost 6 tablespoons of lemon juice (or vinegar, both with a pH around 2.3) to the pie crust, making it inedibly sour.


Hope this helps. I'll answer as many questions as I can find time for!

Good luck cooking...
Kenji