Overall review, I loved this pie, it was a wonderful, simple, blueberry pie. I absolutely love blueberry pies in general, so maybe I'm biased. I remember one early spring going on a Maine road trip, bottom to top, all the way up to Lubec, the easternmost point of the United States. I love Maine, I think it is my favorite state to visit, it is just so clean, and fresh, and beautiful. I think that every restaurant we stopped at, if they had it, I ordered a piece of blueberry pie. So with that in mind I have tasted some awesome blueberry pies, but to me there are only two kinds of blueberry pies, bad or good. Dorie's falls into the good category, thank goodness, because I did have some trouble with that pie crust and it was nice to eat a pie that made that trouble worthwhile. Sometimes bad blueberry pies look good, I remember going to a get together and there was a beautiful blueberry pie sitting on the dessert table, I just could not wait to get myself and extra large piece, and I did, and after one bite I think the rest got tossed, yeah, it was that bad.
I stayed almost 100% true to the recipe, my only change was that I didn't add the breadcrumbs, sorry! I meant to, I really did, I knew I had two containers of breadcrumbs in the pantry and thought one was plain and one Italian seasoned, well I never checked until I was ready to use them in the recipe, and my plain container of breadcrumbs actually was "cheese" breadcrumbs! Now I'm a fan of cheese with just about anything, I love love love some creamy baked brie with blueberry chutney, but I knew that these cheese breadcrumbs would just ruin my perfect pie. I remembered reading about some people subbing graham cracker crumbs so I got out my graham cracker crumbs they had gone bad, trust me, I think they expired in '06 -- oops. And to be completely honest, I have graham crackers in the house, but it didn't even cross my mind to crush them myself. I had a one track mind and that was get my pie in the oven! So, no breadcrumbs in my pie, sounds like a great idea, and I'm sure I'll try it sometime, just didn't happen this time around.
I took a ton of pictures of the whole pie making process -- hope you don't mind...
look at all that butter!!
yeah, need to get a bigger processor...
had to pat it down just a bit, it was a fussy dough for me
ahh, beautiful blueberries, how I love thee
zest zest zeztin'
ready for a top crust
my big mess
see, I topped it with a heart, aww, it wasn't too visible after baking though :(
My dough was a little difficult to work with, and I've done pie dough many times, I'm not amazing at it, but I know how it goes and I do a nice crust. I've never done it in the food processor but did this time and I think that was my mistake. I sometimes have a problem judging how things will fit, sure, that shirt isn't too small, sure, it can fit in my trunk (accord, yeah, not happening) sure the pie dough ingredients will fit into my joke of a food processor. Well it fit, but it was really tight, and I think that caused me to over pulse it, but you know what, it ended up working out just fine, so it's not that big of a deal. It did have me yearning for a new food processor though. If I were to try this dough recipe again, and after reading so many rave reviews on it I think I want to, I would just do it with my pampered chef pastry blender by hand.
Baking time, just fine...I did my foil tent after the first 30 minutes when you drop the temp, just to be safe, ended up taking it off again for the last 10 minutes. Beautiful crust!
First taste, after letting sit one hour, honestly I thought it was REALLY sweet. I was kind of sad it was that sweet. The kids devoured and thoroughly enjoyed every last morsel though, nothing is too sweet for them. After it sat for about half a day we had some company, a friend had a slice and loved it and has requested the recipe, said it was amazing...then my mom had a slice, and said it was really good, she loved the crust, but she wasn't sure what the whiteness was and said it looked like under done raw dough...I had to assure her that my crust was perfectly done and that the whiteness was just from the flour that was tossed with the berries before baking. After she closely examined her piece she delcared that I should have cooked the filling first to get rid of the unappetizing whiteness from the flour. Okay. Whiteness aside she loved it and had a second slice at the end of her visit.
See the whiteness I mentioned? Did anyone else have that? I know I measured correctly and that my pie was 'done' so that must just be from the flour and sugar mixture mixed with the berries...didn't bother me and you couldn't taste it, just visually a little odd.
Now my husband, poor guy has the worst tastebeds, doesn't like blueberries. Before I started this recipe I was so excited and thought that maybe this recipe would be so amazing that it would make him fall head over heels in love with blueberries and blueberry pie and have me make one every night (well, not literally, but you catch my drift) no such luck. He took one bite, he didn't really WANT to, I asked him to please try it, he said, "the pie is good but way too sweet," he blamed it on the blueberries and say that one of the reasons he doesn't like them is because they are way too sweet. Now this bite was after the pie settled for half a day and the sweetness was not as biting as when it first came out of the oven.
All in all it was a good blueberry pie, would I make this exact recipe again? I don't know. There are so many amazing sounding recipes out there that I think I'd want to try a new one, especially since husband didn't like it. Before I married boring food man I made an amazing blueberry crumble pie that had a crumb topping, I think that one is still my favorite blueberry pie, but I am really glad that TWD gave me the excuse I needed to make another delicious pie with one of MY favorite berries. I just adore blueberries and in my "first kitchen" -- in the little house we rented after we got married -- I had a blueberries and teddy bear themed kitchen, it was so country and so cute. Now my kitchen is a lot bigger but it is simple, no fun fruity theme, just stainless and boring. I do still have my blueberry cookie jar, it is on a table in the dining room now, and used as a bookend.
