Pluot pistachio tart for my mom's birthday

It was my mom's birthday on Thursday. I have been so wrapped up in my own busy schedule that I only got a chance to speak to her on Saturday. I have no valid excuses, except that I was busy with work, busy with social activities, just busy. I also had no time to buy a gift.
My mom definitely deserved more than nothing on her birthday (or rather 3 days after her birthday), so I baked her a tart. I had been planning this tart for awhile actually. I took Anna Olson's recipe for a grapefruit pistachio tart, which I have made a few times with my mom in winter, and, since grapefruits are not in season in August, I used pluots instead—Frog Hollow pluots to be exact.
Frog Hollow is an organic farm in California. They grow the most wonderful peaches, nectarines, apricots, and pluots. I first heard of Frog Hollow the summer of 2004, when they were featured on an episode of the Martha Stewart Show (it may have been a repeat of an earlier show from previous years for all I know). We started ordering from them a week later, and we have continued to order from them twice a month on average, for the last 6 years. We adore Frog Hollow, and we are addicted to their fruits. Their fruits are grown and picked with love, they are shipped with care, and we savor every last one of them that we receive until summer's end. I look forward to their fruits each and every summer, but I never bake with them for fear of disrespecting the fruits and the labor behind them. This is another reason why I chose this tart recipe: the sliced fruits are arranged on top of the chilled tart—no disrespecting the fruits by baking them.
There are a few annoyances about the recipe that I used that I feel must be noted—no offense Anna Olson, I still love your recipes:

1. The recipe for the filling yields way too much for the size of the tart made, and if you attempt to pour all the filling in the tart shell, it will overflow and you will have a real mess on your hands, your feet, and your oven. Therefore, I halved the filling recipe, but kept the amount of vanilla to about a tablespoon (which gave a great flavor to the pistachio frangipane-like filling).
2. The recipe for the crust is a little finicky. It is crumbly before you chill it, but it rolls out beautifully. When it comes time to transfer to the tart pan, the dough is so delicate that it can only be transferred in pieces. Luckily, the dough is very forgiving and the broken pieces can just be pressed together in the pan. Knowing this, you'd expect I'd work to tweak the recipe a little. However, the crust is delicious the way it is, and the finished tart serves up beautifully. So, I opted to not change the recipe, and live through the little frustrations that I knew this recipe would bring.

And here is how it turned out:

It's pretty, isn't it? However, I don't think that I can take credit for that. It's the fruit. The pluots are gorgeous. I used 2 types.

Here's the recipe.
Pluot pistachio tart
Adapted from Anna Olson's recipe posted on Food Network Canada.
Serves 6–8

Crust

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup ground pistachios
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup frozen butter, cubed
• 4 egg yolk

 Filling

• 1/4 cup whipping cream
• 1/6 cup sugar (I know, I know, nobody has a cup measurer for 1/6 of a cup. I used 41 grams sugar to be exact, approximately half of a 1/3 cup measurer of sugar)
•  1 egg
•  1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup ground pistachios

Fruit and topping

• 3–4 pluots, sliced (basically have enough on hand so that you can cover the tart with sliced fruit)
• Apple jelly diluted with some water for glazing (this is optional—the fruits are so sweet and juicy, that the glaze really isn't necessary)
• Ground pistachios

First prepare the crust:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the cold butter, and work the mixture until you get a coarse crumb (I use my hands, but you can use a pastry cutter, 2 knives, or a food processor).
3. Add the egg yolks and mix until the dough just comes together when pressed.
4. Transfer to saran wrap and form a disk. Refrigerate until chilled.
5. Roll out the dough, transfer to a 9-inch tart pan (with removable bottom). Trim the edges and chill for another 15 minutes. Dock with a fork and bake in the oven for15 minutes. Remove from the oven to cool slightly.

Prepare the filling while the crust is baking:

1. Whisk together all the ingredients. Pour into the pre-baked pie shell, and bake for an additional 18 minutes. The tart filling, including the center, should be set when it is done baking. Remove the tart from the oven and let it cool completely before chilling it for at least 1 hour.

 Finish the tart by arranging the fruits:

1. Top the tart with the sliced fruit. Then glaze with some diluted apple jelly.
2. Sprinkle with some ground pistachio. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve. 

 

The tart was great. I especially liked the vanilla flavor that came through, which was perfect with the pistachios and the pluots. I enjoyed the tart with my mom and left her the last few slices instead of keeping them for myself. See, I have some okay-daughter moments! Hopefully, next year, I will have more time, or rather, next year, I will make more time for my mom.

A fresh and light, summer potato salad with Quebec fava beans

I love potatoes and potato salad. However, creamy potato salads can be heavy; delicious, but heavy, not to mention unhealthy. I love to test out new potato salad recipes that combine ingredients that complement the potato, without weighing it down and/or masking it completely. This is my take on the recipe for "Summer beans with new potatoes, hazelnuts, feta, basil and mint" from the July 2010 issue of Delicious magazine from the UK (different from the Australian one). This recipe, like so many others, is simple, yummy, and full of fresh ingredients. This recipe is one of the many reasons that I don't mind investing in the magazine "imports"  that are quite a bit more expensive than the American and Canadian magazines that I also purchase on a monthly basis. See how I justify my addiction!

Quebec-grown fava beans are in season now, so I was really happy to find another recipe to use them in. I prepared and cooked the fava beans a day in advance. This was convenient with my busy schedule, but, much to my dismay, the vibrant green of the favas mellowed upon storage. Oh well. The salad was still great. Since it is also the height of tomato-season in Canada, I decided to add a couple to the dish. I used some "Tom-blaka" tomatoes from Ontario, which are a deep red with unusual forest green highlights, as you can see in the photo (ignore the scattering of herbs on my cutting board, please).

Summer potato salad with Quebec fava beans
Serves 6

• 1 large shallot, finely diced
• cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup EVOO
• 1/8 cup cider vinegar
• salt and pepper
• 200 g green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces
• 300 g new potatoes, cut into 1–2-cm slices
• 200 g prepared fava beans (i.e. removed from the pod, blanched and shelled—you will need a good 600 g fava beans to get 200 g of prepared fava beans)
• 200 g tomatoes, chopped
• 200g feta, cubed
• 1 handful of basil and mint leaves, roughly chopped

For the vinaigrette: 

1. In a small fry pan, heat the oil on medium. Add the shallots and garlic, and cook them until the shallots are translucent.

For the salad:

1. Boil the new potatoes for about 5–7 minutes, until just cooked through (do not overcook!). Drain and set aside
2. Add the cider vinegar and stir to deglaze the pan. Remove from the heat. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Blanch the green beans so that the green is vibrant, but they are still crispy.
4. In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, green beans, fava beans, tomatoes, feta, and herbs. 
5. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad and toss.
6. Enjoy!

The nice thing about this salad is that the shallots and garlic are cooked so that the vinaigrette is flavored with them, but you are not left with a "lasting impression" from them for an entire day. If you can't find fava beans, you can use edamame instead.


This will be my next submission to Magazine Mondays, which Tina is graciously hosting this week since Ivonne is on vacation. Special thanks to Tia for hosting last week's edition.

P.S. I omitted the hazelnuts due to an annoying allergy. I chose not to replace them with another nut, and was happy with the result. I don't think the hazelnuts were really necessary.

DB: I heart brown butter in a Baked Alaska and Ice Cream Petits Fours

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, the Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event, and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petits Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop.”

Brown butter is truly wonderful. What`s not to love? It's butter that is melted and cooked until the dairy turns a deep golden. As the butter simmers, the kitchen fills with the scent of melted butter. After a few minutes, you are left with the aroma of a nut-butter that is (you guessed it) a buttery color, flecked with delicious caramelized dairy-bits. Yum! It smells delish. It tastes delish. And thus, I deem it wonderful. The first time I made brown butter was for Julia Child's recipe for madeleines (I'm pretty sure it's in this book, but I could be completely wrong), which called for brown butter for both the cake-y-cookie batter, and for buttering the madeleine tins. The recipe for her madeleines is great and worked like a charm (even for I, in 2004, a novice baker who had never made browned butter, nor baked madeleines before!). I haven't attempted either the madeleines, or the brown butter since then.

As I browned the butter for this month's Daring Bakers' challenge, I realized that I heart brown butter! Why have I not made/baked with it more? I imagined the potential recipes that I could bake with my new love. This batch of brown butter was destined for the brown butter pound cake from Gourmet 2009 (Gourmet, I miss you so much!). The pound cake was a cinch to prepare once the brown butter was cooled enough to use. Since I had lots of desserts to prepare with the cake, I opted to divide the cake batter among 2 muffin tins. This way, I ended up with 12 neat, mini pound cakes, perfect for transforming into individual baked Alaskas and petits fours (perhaps a little large for that title, so let's call them chocolate-dipped ice cream cakewiches). The pound cake muffins took 25 minutes to bake up at the recommended oven temperature.

I find that meringue topping can be a bit overwhelming if it is paired with a sweet dessert. So instead of opting for a traditional vanilla ice cream for the baked Alaskas, I was inspired by lemon meringue pie, and I opted for lemon ice cream as the filling. This was sheer brilliance. My baked Alaskas tasted just like a frozen lemon meringue pie! Here are some pics from the baked-Alaska-assembly-process.

Here are my sliced pound cake muffins, topped with lemon ice cream, which I pre-froze in plastic wrap lined muffin tins so that they would fit perfectly on my pound cake muffin bottoms (I ate the tops that I sliced off. Waste not, want not!).

I topped each with a nice mound of meringue.

Then I broiled them until they were just beginning to caramelize on top (ideally, I would have liked to use a blow torch to do this more evenly without melting the ice cream....).

As usual, I ate one straight off the baking sheet (what else were you expecting from me, really?), and I forgot to plate them nicely for a pretty picture. It's not my fault: I got really excited to try them. The combination of lemon ice cream with the nutty brown butter pound cake and the meringue was great, definitely like lemon meringue pie, but more refreshing.

Along the same idea as for the baked Alaskas, I split a couple of my pound cake muffins into 2 layers each. Then I sandwiched my homemade chai ice cream between the layers, and coated with the ganache. I refroze them, et voilà! 

The sweet, spiced chai ice cream went perfectly with the semi-sweet dark chocolate, and the nutty brown butter pound cake. I'm glad I opted to make a second ice cream, rather than use the lemon ice cream for the petits fours, i.e. chocolate-dipped ice cream cakewiches. I don't think the lemon flavor would have worked here. 

Conclusion: Time well spent and loads of fun!
My first Daring Bakers challenge was great (laborious, but great!). Can't wait for what's to come!

Homemade spiced chai ice cream

With the success of my lemon ice cream (so refreshing), I decided to try to make another ice cream. Quite frankly, my first ice cream was a little too healthy for me, using 15% cream and 1% milk, instead of 35% cream and 3.25% milk. My next flavor of choice: spiced chai. I love spiced chai. The combination of dried spices are so soothing, especially when combined with creamy milk.
Again, using Dabid Lebovitz's vanilla ice cream recipe, I steeped 2 bags of spiced chai in the milk and left it to cool for an hour, then proceeded with the rest of his recipe. What a result! Remember, back in the day, when Ben & Jerry's ice cream had their line of "smooth" flavors? This spiced chai ice cream was so smooth and creamy, I honestly feel it would have made an excellent addition along side my all-time favorite of that line: White Russian (R.I.P. White Russian, you were always my favorite, both times that Ben and Jerry's produced you).

I did not/could not wait to scoop up a bowl of my latest ice cream creation. Of course, as I was desperately trying to photograph it, the ice cream was melting. I quickly gave up on the photographing, and focused on the eating (a talent that I am much more skilled at).

P.S. If the people of Ben & Jerry's ice cream are reading: Please bring back White Russian. It was divine. I purchased as much of it as I could both times you produced it. I would purchase it again today if you would make me some. I also miss your "chocolate cherry garcia" flavor! That was another great one! In the meantime, maybe I should just work on a recipe for either of these.... Maybe it would be quicker for Ben & Jerry's to express mail-me a batch or two...

Life gave me a few more lemons, so I came up with a recipe for lemon ice cream

I guess that I am out of luck right now. Things just are not going the way I planned them to. I have had a series of terrible days (I guess that actually it's been a few weeks). The other day, I even got run over by a blind man who repeatedly hit me with his walking stick, which eventually got caught in the straps of my bag, all while he continued to move forward towards the metro exit (this was actually really funny, but in the moment, it was quite sad). Needless to say, I have a lot of lemons to deal with. Still not making lemonade with them. Instead, I made lemon ice cream! Unconventional ice cream flavor, but I had a hankering for something tart.
So, I borrowed my mom's Krups ice cream maker for the job. I inspired my creation from 2 recipes: the Gourmet magazine lemon ice cream recipe from June 1993, and David Lebovitz's vanilla ice cream recipe, which uses egg yolks instead of whole eggs. This turned out to be a winning combination, if you ask me! I was eating it straight out of the ice cream maker because I couldn't hold back! (I know this is a terrible photo, but I just had to photograph my ice cream as it churned away in the machine!). I guess the end result is a sherbet-like ice cream. It's yummy.

Here's the recipe that resulted from the combination of the two recipes.

Lemon ice cream
Makes about 1 quart

• zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (approximately the juice of 2 lemons)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups 15% cream, divided
• 1 cup 1% milk
• pinch of salt
• 5 egg yolks

Directions

1. Freeze the ice cream drum in the freezer for a good 24 hours before attempting to make ice cream.
2. Whisk together the lemon zest, juice, sugar, 1 cup of 15% cream, milk, salt and egg yolks in a medium saucepan.
3. Heat on stove on medium heat and bring it just to a simmer.
4. Strain through a fine strainer, squeezing the custard out of the zest.
5. Set aside to cool. Then refrigerate several hours to cool completely (if not overnight).
6. Place the frozen drum on the ice cream maker, and assemble according to instructions.
7. Turn on the ice cream maker, and pour in the custard (it may be a little curdled, but that's okay because the ice cream maker will do the work of making it nice and smooth).
8. Add the other cup of cold, 15% cream as it churns. Walk away. It takes a good 15 minutes for the ice cream to set. If you stand and watch it, you will panic—as I did—because it will seem as though it is not freezing, but don't worry: It is definitely freezing, just very slowly!
9. When the ice cream has reached the desired consistency. Turn off the machine, disassemble, and transfer the ice cream to a container. Place in freezer. Of course, you can simply eat the ice cream straight out of the frozen drum (for optimal consumption, you may want to place a pillow on your lap to comfortably rest the drum without freezing your legs).

I decided to try photographing the ice cream. I lack photography skills.  I love to bake, and eat my baking. But capturing my baking on film makes me sweat blood and tears, literally. I occasionally get the urge to shove my camera into a blender and pulse it to smithereens because my skills are just that terrible. I have somehow misplaced the manual to my camera (which is odd because I have a box of manuals for all my appliances, and the camera manual is M.I.A.! Figures!). I also have terrible lighting in my apartment (as demonstrated by the ice cream churning photograph from above), and I am not sure how to fix it. I photograph my creations at night because I work during the day. I guess quitting my job is probably not the solution to my problem...
Here were some attempts to photograph the ice cream. Of course, I had the issue that ice cream melts (not helpful on the part of the ice cream). Clearly, ice cream is not a good subject to practice my photography skills on. Oh well. Even when it was a little melted, the ice cream was still delicious.

Tomato: fruit or vegetable? A "mind-blowing" tomato tarte tatin from Bon Appétit magazine

The scientist in me often forgets the difference between a fruit and a vegetable. I thought that the foodie in me had it down pat. But then Bon Appétit magazine published a recipe for a tomato tarte tatin in their August issue. This tart is meant to be a dessert, not a savory part of a meal. This tart reminded me that tomatoes are in fact fruits, not vegetables! Hmmm..... Whether tomatoes are fruits or vegetables, this recipe seemed a little nuts to me: tomatoes in a tarte tatin? What are they thinking? This cannot taste good! Yet in the little blurb just before the recipe, Bon Appétit states that we should prepare to be "blown away" by this recipe, which is "a revelation!" They are challenging us to make this crazy recipe, and I happily accepted the challenge.

A couple hours later, and 2 slices of tomato tarte tatin consumed, I can honestly declare that Bon Appétit was right (how dare I doubt them!). This tarte tatin really is mind-blowing. It's perfect: the acidity of the tomatoes balances the sweetness of the caramel. The slight char of the caramelized tomatoes is wonderful. This tomato tarte tatin really does taste delicious! The tomatoes shine in this dessert. It makes me wonder what other "vegetables" could/should really be featured as fruits. And I do not think you should simply take my word for it: I think you should make this tomato tarte tatin. Then you will understand that this tarte tatin is brilliant. For the recipe, click here, please.

This is the second post that I will be submitting to Cream Puffs in Venice for Magazine Mondays. I am ecstatic that I have been taking the time to use my magazines. And, I must thank Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice for giving us magazine-addicts a reason to actually use those magazines we invest in.

A Jill Dupleix recipe from Delicious magazine to prepare enough mussels for an army

I buy a lot of food magazines. In fact, I spend an obscene chunk of my pay cheque every month on food magazines. I buy the usual Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Fine Cooking, Martha Stewart Living and Everyday Food. I also buy Every Day with Rachel Ray magazine, Cooking Light (although recently, I've been pretty disappointed with this one). I even invest in magazines from the UK, like BBC Good Food, and from Australia, like Delicious. The magazine "imports" are really, really pricey, but I just can't help it: I love them the most! I adore how the names of certain foods are different, like capsicum instead of fresh pepper (usually red peppers). With the Australian magazines, the seasons don't quite align with ours and it amuses me to sometimes read about winter root veggies mid-summer.

With all these magazines, how many dishes do you think I prepare using these recipes? Well.... Maybe 1 a month. Maybe less. I know: It's pathetic. It's also a source of argument when I travel with my parents (specifically my father), and I take with me a bag stocked with at least 10 different magazines, and then I still make a stop at the airport magazine store to buy a few more: "What are you going to do with all these magazines?" "Why are you throwing away your money?" I'm addicted! I need to buy them, and browse through them. And put them aside. And then pick them up later, and browse through them again.
Lynn pointed me to a brilliant solution to the magazine pile-up. A solution that will force me to at least make a couple recipes from the magazines: Magazine Mondays brought to you by Cream Puffs in Venice! Essentially, you pick a recipe from one of your magazine collection. You prepare it (or some variation). You blog about your creation, and then you submit it to the lovely Cream Puffs. Voilà! Another excuse to buy more magazines! For my first magazine creation, I picked a simple recipe from Delicious, Volume 7, Issue 5. It's the issue with the yummy-looking fried ravioli on the cover!

The recipe I chose to prepare was entitled "mussels with fregola" and is from Jill Dupleix who often contributes to the magazine. I deviated from the recipe on a few points. Fregola is hard to find, and I couldn't find it. Fregola is much like Israeli couscous according to the magazine, but I couldn't find Israeli couscous either. So I went with some ditalini pasta, which are short tubes, perfect for a brothy, mussel dish. I purchased 3 kilos of mussels. This was a gross overestimation of how much (many?) mussels I needed. The recipe calls for 1 kg for 4 people, but we are big eaters. And, in my defense, I thought I was making the dish for 5 people. But we ended up being 3 because nobody told me that 2 people weren't coming for dinner.... That's ok, I'd have left-overs for lunch during the week (note my attempt at optimism). I also deviated from the recipe in that I added extra veggies: fennel and zucchini. The recipe worked out great (even though I prepared enough mussels for a small army). When we were done eating, I took the time to remove the mussels from the shells, and put the "meat of them" back into the broth so that I could easily take a portion for lunch every day without the burden of mussel shells to deal with. The dish was great. And so were the left-overs. I highly recommend it! And I also highly recommend this magazine because it's wonderful!
I've written out the recipe that I prepared, but you might want to halve it if you are not preparing mussels for an army. The recipe is forgiving, so be creative!


Mussels with ditalini
Serves an army

• 3 kg mussels
• Olive oil
• 1 large red onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 3 Thai red chilies, thinly sliced
• 2 fennel bulbs, halved and thinly sliced
• 500g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 zucchini, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
• 1 bunch parsley, chopped
• White wine (half a bottle approximately)
• 900 mL chicken stock
• 300g ditalini pasta (or fregola or Israeli couscous)

1. Soak mussels in a large pan of water with a splash of vinegar (this is my mom's technique to get them to spit out their sand).
2. Heat oil in a large soup or spaghetti pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, chili, and fennel. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes until the onions are translucent and softened. Add the tomatoes, zucchini, stock, wine, some salt and pepper, and bring it to a boil. Add the mussels, cover the pot with a lid, and cook them until they open (about 2–5 minutes). Transfer them to a bowl—discarding any that didn't open—and set aside. Bring the broth to a boil and add the pasta. Cook the pasta until they are al dente, then add back the mussels to reheat them quickly. Top with parsley. Enjoy with some nice sliced, crusty baguette.

The quest for the best pie continues with a recipe for blueberry pie

It's blueberry season! It's blueberry season! The markets are loaded with small and big cartons of Lac St-Jean blueberries. I am considering making blueberry and champagne jam with these precious summer gems, inspired by a jar of jam I picked up at the PEI Preserve Company last summer (eventually, I will find the time!).

In the meantime, blueberry pie was a must on my baking to-do list of blueberry-containing treats. I have only had blueberry pie a handful of times, and it truly is wonderful: A pie filled to the brim with luscious blueberries swimming in a sweet, blueberry infused sauce. The colors are fabulous too because the sauce appears as a deep purplish-indigo in the pie, and yet, on a white plate, you are left with dribbles of a lighter shade of purple. In this summer's quest for the perfect pie, I decided to test out a different crust recipe. For the last couple of posts (for my summer fruit pie and my peach and whiskey crumble pie, I used the Smitten Kitchen recipe for an all-butter crust. The recipe was a cinch to prepare and work with, but it yielded a super crisp crust (maybe too crisp). Perhaps it was because I rolled the pie dough too thin (I did end up using a double crusts worth of dough for 2 pies)? Or perhaps I overworked the dough (I doubt it, but maybe!). I'm not sure what went wrong, but my dough was so crisp, it was hard to cut with a fork (easy to bite, but forks just wouldn't cut through well). For this blueberry pie, I referred to the Epicurious site and came across a recipe for Basic Flaky Pie Crust (courtesy of RLB's Pie and Pastry Bible, go figure). Since I was pressed for time (and not prepared to make this in advance), I had no time to pre-chill the mixing bowls, etc. prior to making the crust (I don't think it was necessary unless you live in a super hot apartment). I did, however, use frozen cubed butter for this recipe. Interestingly, the recipe called for some vinegar (I opted for white vinegar instead of the recommended cider vinegar) and baking powder. Not sure what either of these do. I read somewhere (sorry no reference) that vinegar prevents the dough from getting tough from overworking it. I put the recipe together with my hands (so soul-satisfying to make pie dough with your hands!). The amount of ice-cold water recommended was not sufficient for my crust though, so I upped the amount 1 tbsp at a time until the dough just came together. It was still a bit crumbly, and the edges cracked a little when I rolled it out after refrigerating, but otherwise, it was a pleasure to work with. I baked the crust at 425°F for 30 minutes with pie weights (ie the base of a removable-bottom tart pan) and then removed the weights and baked it for a few extra minutes, until the crust was evenly golden.

While the pie was baking, I assembled the filling using a "blueberries squared" method I found on chowhound. You basically melt butter (I love that the filling has butter in it!), add half the blueberries with the sugar and lemon juice. When the berries start to burst, you can add the flour and salt. Then you cook it over the stove until it has thickened. You cool it, and then add the other half of the berries (blueberries squared! Get it?). I also added some vanilla extract. Pour into pre-baked crust, let set, and enjoy! Letting it set is key. I got impatient and cut a piece a little too early, and the blueberry filling slowly flooded out. I panicked at the thought that this pie was a failure!

But then, as I was eating my flooded slice, I realized just how flaky and tender this crust was! Look at the flakiness! This crust is awesome!

And when I had another slice (or 2) the next day, the pie was set. I could serve a slice neatly, without blueberry filling gushing out.

See the tiny drops of blueberry sauce trickling in the first photo: Perfect! The pie is not so set that it is weirdly gelatinous, but not so runny that it is un-serve-able. Just right! My only complaint is that the filling is a little tart (gets you right at the back of the throat). Perhaps it needed more sugar.... Still, I absolutely adore the crust (even though it cracked a little) and I really like the recipe for the filling, and with a few more tweaks, I think we could be on to something amazing!



Blueberry pie filling
(Adapted from Chowhound)
Makes enough filling for a 10-inch deep dish pie

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
• 6 cups blueberries
• juice of half a lemon
• 3 tablespoons flour, and more as needed
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Melt butter over medium heat in a saucepan.
2. Add 3 cups of blueberries, the lemon juice, and sugars, and cook until the blueberries release their juices. Then add the flour, and salt. Stir over medium heat (be careful because the mixture is very thick at first and you do not want to burn the flour! Remove from heat periodically if you are worried this could happen) and let it bubble a little.
3. Remove from heat and set aside to cool to room temperature.
4. When the mixture is cooled, add the other 3 cups of blueberries and the vanilla. Stir well to make sure that the berries are evenly coated.
5. Pour into the baked 10-inch  pie crust and let it set (if possible, let it set for a few hours in a cool place) before enjoying.