Baby Blueberry Pies

I had a HUGE bag of blueberries chilling in the freezer, so I had a hankering for blueberry pie. A couple of Google searches later, I ended up with this...

Mini pie love.

Blueberry Mini Pies (makes 2)

Pie dough

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• pinch of salt
• 2 ounces/ 50g/ 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut in cubes and frozen
• ice water

Filling

• 1 cup blueberries (I used frozen)
• 1/2 tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp cornstarch
• 1 and a 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tbsp room temperature butter
• Dash of Orange Zest

+ Egg wash for the crust!

Prep: Freeze butter chunks, chill the pie pans in the fridge.

Dough:
Add the flour, sugar, and salt into a small food processor. Pulse once or twice to combine. Then add the frozen butter, a couple of chunks at a time, until the mixture is course with pea sized pieces. Pour the mixture into a bowl (you can make the filling in it later) and add drops of ice water, stirring slowly, until the dough starts to come together. THEN STOP! Don't overwork or over-wet the dough!
The dough can be used right away or kept in the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic, for 3 days, or frozen for a month. Roll out 1/2 the dough to 1/8th an inch on a floured surface and place a bottom layer in both pie pans. Roll out the remaining dough into for the pie tops (you could cut into lattice strips or a stick with a simple circle circle). Refrigerate the pans and dough while making the filling.
Filling:
Mix the blueberries, sugar, flour, cornstarch, and orange zest in the bowl. Divide evenly between the prepared pie pans. Dot the berries with butter. Gently press the pie tops and bottom edges of dough together to seal, and then pinch sealed edges. (If using a circle pie top, cut slits to vent.)

Transfer prepared pies to a rimmed baking sheet, and freeze or refrigerate until firm, 15 to 20 minutes, while you preheat your oven to to 375°F/190°C.
Bake until golden and juices are bubbling, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack."

Recipe halved and modified from here.


My thoughts on this recipe..

$#^#%! Pie crust is super finicky to make and roll out. I guessed wrong on halving the dough and didn't have enough left for the tops. I tried it to just make it cobbler style, with chunks of dough in the filling. Although it pains me, I'll be sticking to pre-made crust from now on.The filling however was great! 6 ingredients and EASY. I did add some extra cornstarch and flour since my frozen berries were quite juicy once thawed
The pies were delicious, even if a little rough looking. True, the middle crust "chunks" didn't get brown but with whipped cream it wasn't noticeable.
I got 4 servings out of the 2 mini pies. I think I could have gotten away with 1/4 a pie with a big dinner.

Overall, I recommend the filling recipe with pre-made crust to save yourself some effort!