Blueberry Crumb Pie

Last week, for a friend's birthday party, we went to Buttermilk Channel - a restaurant in Brooklyn and had excellent dinner. My favorite dish was the appetizer - grilled flat bread with fresh ricotta and squash blossom. The dish was so simple but it was executed so perfectly that I kept dreaming about it for days.

For dessert, we all shared a chocolate tart, a pecan pie sundae, a banana bread pudding and a blueberry tart with vanilla ice cream.

I made it my mission to replicate the tart. It was tart - as in sour. It was full of berries and probably with minimal added sugar. It was perfect pairing with sweet and creamy ice cream.



I got pretty close. I made blueberry crumb pie with only 1/2 cup of raw sugar for 4 pints of blueberries. The pie was juicy and tart. The crust was flaky and buttery especially the day after baking - before it went into the refrigerator.



From the list of ingredients below, I got one 9-inch pie which I brought to a dinner party. The host said she had never tasted such a good pie. :D I also had enough to make additional 8 mini tarts in a muffin pan which I distributed to my friends with varying level of compliments - from "amazing!" to "not bad" to "ok"...



Ingredients

• Pie crust


• 3 3/4 cups all purpose flour


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 3 tablespoon sugar


• 3 sticks chilled butter - cut into chunks


• 1/4 cup ice cold water


• Filling


• 4 pints fresh blueberries (about 7 cups) - rinsed and stemmed


• Juice from 1 lemon


• 1/2 cup sugar (if you want sweeter pie, increase sugar up to 1 1/2 cups)


• 3 tablespoons instant tapioca


• Topping


• 2/3 cup all purpose flour


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/2 stick chilled butter

Directions

1. To make the pie crust, in a food processor, pulse flour, salt and sugar together. Add cubed butter. Pulse 10 more times until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Turn the mixture into a large bowl, sprinkle cold water over and mix with a rubber spatula. Gather the dough into 2 balls. Flatten and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.


2. To make the filling, toss the berries with sugar, lemon juice and tapioca.


3. For the crumb topping, mix flour and sugar in a clean bowl. Cut in chilled butter with a pastry blender or two table knives until the mixture resemble coarse crumbs.


4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. To assemble, roll out one of disks and place at the bottom of a 9-inch pie dish. Crimp the edge. For mini tart, roll out the other disk and cut out with 4-inch cookie cutter. Arrange into a muffin pan.


5. Spoon the berries into the prepared pie dish and muffin pan. Sprinkle the crumb topping.


6. For the pie bake for 35-40 minutes and 20-25 minutes for mini tarts or until the top is nicely brown.


7. Let the pie cool in the dish before cutting. For the tarts, let cool of a few minutes in the muffin pan, then turn out (I used mini metal spatula to scoop out the side) to cool on a cooling rack.