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Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Best Blueberry Pie – Mary’s Version

June 27, 2021 by Mary Leave a Comment

It’s blueberry season and I had been having a craving for this Best Blueberry Pie– it’s the pie by Rose Levy Beranbaum from Food 52. Only now I have remade the recipe – Best Blueberry Pie – Mary’s Version!

The weekend before last, I was invited to my new friend Maria’s house in Bayville, NY. Her home is smack dab right on the water, the beautiful Long Island Sound. It is just gorgeous! Maria is also a recent widow like me, and has a terrific group of great friends who get together on a regular basis. They are all foodies and wine snobs, so I fit right in.

For a dinner party at her friends’ house we were tasked with bringing dessert. Maria suggested to go buy something but since it was cloudy, non-beach weather on Saturday, I suggested I make something. And I must say, this new version of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Blueberry Pie was spectacular! Everyone LOVED it – calling it the perfect dessert, not too sweet, the crust was so flakey, so many positive comments, even on the next day. I always think that if people are still remembering and talking about your food the next day, then you’ve made a real hit! 

This is a masterpiece pie to look at and eat. In reality, the berries glisten like jewels and I just love the fresh pop of taste with the uncooked berries.

Truth be told, this pie was made under distressed conditions in that Maria is not a baker. She did not have a pastry cutter or cloth or rolling pin cover and her pie plate was particularly deep.

This pie crust is a pretty big deviation from my normal, Mom’s pie crust recipe. But this is the ONE to keep! And I made my recipe so much easier than Rose Levy Beranbaum’s.

YOUR LOVE AS ONE OF YOUR INGREDIENTS

Remember it is always about the quality of the ingredients you use, along with the amount of LOVE you put in.

Here, I used Plugra unsalted butter, the best blueberries you can find, freshest lemons and even homemade vanilla that her friend, Glenn, had made. 

For the crust, the two phases of refrigeration in the recipe are very important. These cold portions will help to produce a very flakey crust so please do not skip them.

The gorgeous fried chicken and celeriac salad.

The fried chicken dinner with broccoli rabe and a celeriac salad was all too delicious. Not only was I over-served on great Nebbiolo wines but I over-served myself on the chicken too! So good.

It was super fun to be in a different area – Long Island – to me is like another state. On Friday night we met up with the mutual friend who had introduced Maria and me, for a long dinner at a local restaurant. On Saturday morning, we met up with that same friend and her group of friends for a hike through this beautiful wooded area that used to hold all of the Gold Coast mansions with everyone’s dogs (Maria has two). One of the friends is Italian so Maria and I got to practice our ISL – Italian as a second language. So fun!

SUCH HAPPY MEMORIES

Saturday night was the fabulous dinner party. Her friends were so warm and welcoming. Most of them came over to Maria’s house on Sunday, bringing a beautiful brunch. It was a glorious beach day on Sunday, all of us full and happy, sipping on beers, tequila or Bloody Mary’s, lying in front of the LI Sound just enjoying each other and the beauty. This reminded me of my younger days, pre-children, when Steve and I would visit friends in the Hamptons, enjoying a hungover Sunday sweating it out in the sun. So now I am creating new memories.

Best blueberry pie with blackberries, two pieces with vanilla ice cream.
Here is a pic from the first time I made this – with ice cream and some added blackberries.

The recipe:

BEST BLUEBERRY PIE – MARY’S VERSION – serves 8

PIE CRUST – for a 9” pie

8 TBS. unsalted very cold Plugra butter 
1 1/3 cups bleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
3 TBS. ice water
1½ tsp. cider vinegar
1 TBS. egg white, lightly beaten

Toss the flour and salt together with a fork in a medium sized bowl.

Cut the cold butter into very small chunks by cutting the stick lengthwise into 4 quarters and then slice those quarters into ¼” pieces.

Put all of the butter into the flour mixture and using your fingers on both hands, mix and mash the butter and flour together until no chunks of butter are visible. It all has to be incorporated together otherwise you will get butter holes in your crust.

Then sprinkle on the vinegar and toss together with a fork. Sprinkle on a tablespoon of ice water, (one tablespoon at a time), toss with a fork, and repeat with the remaining two tablespoons. Your dough will now hold together and may seem a bit too wet but trust me, it is ok. 

Form the dough into a thick disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 – 2 hours or overnight. This dough can also be frozen for 3 months for future use if you want to make a double recipe.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and  if necessary, allow it to sit for about 10 minutes until soft enough to roll out. On a floured surface – pastry cloth or parchment paper – with a floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to ⅛” thick and fit into your 9” pie pan, crimping the edges as shown in the photo.

Refrigerate the pie crust shell for at least one hour, with a maximum of 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Line the pie crust shell with parchment paper and weigh it down with dried beans or rice, trimming the corners of the extra parchment paper. Bake for 20 minutes, checking at 10 minutes to rotate the pan so one side does not get too brown (as mine did). At the 20 minute mark, lift up and remove the parchment and beans or rice. Then with a fork, lightly prick the crust all over the sides and bottom to prevent it from bubbling up. Do not prick hard and all the way through as you do not want to create holes.

Place the crust back into the oven to lightly brown completely, baking for 5 – 10 minutes more. Check it at the 3 minute mark. It should be a pale golden brown all over.

Remove the crust and cool on a rack for 3 minutes. 

Separate the egg yolk from the egg white and lightly whisk the white with a fork. Brush the inside of the pie crust with the egg white. This will keep it from getting soggy with the blueberries.

FOR THE BLUEBERRY FILLING

4 – 5 cups blueberries, rinsed and dried. Save a handful for garnish.
2 TBS. cornstarch
2 TBS. water
½ cup sugar
½ cup water
1 TBS. lemon juice
Good pinch of salt
2 cups whipped heavy cream, lightly sweetened with 1 TBS. powdered sugar and 1 TBS. vanilla extract

Combine 1 cup of blueberries with ½ cup sugar and ½ cup water in a medium sized pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 3 – 6 minutes until the berries pop and it becomes nice and liquidy and starts to thicken, stirring constantly.

Meanwhile, whisk together the cornstarch and water.

Have your fresh lemon juice ready.

Whisk in the cornstarch and water mixture, the lemon juice and salt. Simmer for a minute until the mixture becomes translucent. Immediately off heat, fold in the remaining blueberries, being sure to cover all berries with the jammy mixture.

Spoon into the pie crust, gently spreading the mixture all over.

Let the pie set at room temperature for at least 2 hours before cutting.

Just before serving whip the cream with the powdered sugar and vanilla and gently spread in a small circle on top, in the center of the pie. Garnish with the saved handful of berries as shown in the picture.

Enjoy!!


Filed Under: Desserts, Tea time Tagged With: blueberries, blueberry pie, buttery pie crust, dessert, flakey pie crust

Blueberry Buckle

September 7, 2015 by Mary 20 Comments

Blueberry Buckle just out of the oven.Happy Labor Day! Time to buckle down now and get back to school and serious business tomorrow, right? Somehow I think we all revert back to our younger selves, our school day calendar, and I find it’s rare that any serious business gets done in the summer, you agree? So yesterday, I made this Blueberry Buckle in honor of “buckling down.” (I couldn’t resist!)

So what exactly is a buckle, I asked and looked it up. From whatscookingamerica.net on the history of these things, they say, A buckle is a type of cake made in a single layer with berries added to the batter. It is usually made with blueberries. The topping is similar to a streusel, which gives it a buckled or crumpled appearance.

I adapted the recipe by Melissa Clark in a recent New York Times and while this is a terrific, light fruit dessert, not too sweet, just the way I like it, it did not have a streusel top. The top cracked as you can see, but no streusel crumbs. Maybe I should work on that for next time…

No matter, this is not time consuming to make, although I think mine turned out so light precisely because I did take the time to thoroughly cream the butter and sugar, while I grated the lemon zest and prepared the dry ingredients. Incidentally, one tablespoon of lemon zest is not too much – I might even add more lemon the next time as it diffuses once it bakes – you’ll use about 11/2 large lemons. And I continued to thoroughly beat the batter after adding each one of the three eggs, using speed two on my KitchenAid. When you add the dry mixture, use speed one, mixing just until no flour is visible. Fold your blueberries in by hand and you’ll be all set.

As I said, I adapted Melissa’s recipe, so there are changes. She calls for 41/2 cups of blueberries while just barely 4 cups is more than plenty in my book. I also buttered the pan and dusted it with flour to prepare it for baking. I don’t trust just using butter and there’s nothing more disappointing than to go through all this work and then have to struggle to get the beautiful dessert out of the pan, in order to make a neat presentation.

Blueberry buckle piece with ice cream on a white plate.Also, I followed her instructions to serve with ice cream, but I think I would prefer creme fraiche the next time.

Hope you get a chance to make this, with LOVE, while fresh blueberries are still abundant! Enjoy!!

BLUEBERRY BUCKLE – serves 8 – adapted from Melissa Clark 

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing pan
½ cup granulated sugar, more for sprinkling
¼ cup light brown sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 Tbs. finely grated lemon zest
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1¼ cups all-purpose flour plus some extra for dusting the pan
½ tsp. fine sea salt
3/4 tsp. fresh grated nutmeg – use ½ tsp. if already grated out of the jar
¼ tsp. baking powder
4 cups blueberries or a mixture of summer berries (a mix of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries or use any one kind)
Cinnamon, for dusting
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan. Dust with flour on all surfaces.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat together until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then add lemon zest and vanilla and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg and baking powder, and whisk to combine. Gradually add dry ingredients to egg mixture and mix until just combined.

Gently fold blueberries into the batter by hand, then spread batter in the prepared pan and sprinkle lightly with more granulated sugar on top. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, or until top is golden and cake is cooked through. (Mine took 50 minutes.)

Blueberry Buckle finished with powdered sugar.Allow cake to cool, then sprinkle with cinnamon and confectioners’ sugar.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche. LOVE!!

Melissa states that this is best eaten the same day but I had a bite this morning with my coffee after breakfast, and it was just fine!!

Filed Under: Desserts Tagged With: blueberries, blueberry buckle, blueberry dessert, fruit desserts

Blueberries!

August 17, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

Locally grown blueberries in cartons.They’re here now locally in abundance! And boy, are they delicious this year!! Sprinkle them on oatmeal, toss in your fruit salad, make sauces for duck, pork and salmon or just eat them! I have already made two pies and one blueberry crisp. They supposedly are a true brain food, full of antioxidants to combat all the other toxic things we do to our bodies. My good friend, Margaret, makes sure to eat lots of them year round but right now they are local, sweet and yummy.

Melissa Clark, in the New York Times, recently published a recipe of a blueberry sauce on salmon. This is on fresh, expensive wild King salmon. You can find the recipe here: Salmon With Agrodolce Blueberries. I made the full recipe for only a pound of salmon for the two of us and saved the rest of the sauce for pork chops on another night. To our tastes, this sauce was just okay on the salmon (which would have been just fine by itself), but amazing on the pork chops. You decide. And the crisp is easy as can be with an oatmeal topping. That recipe is here.

Blueberry crisp with an oatmeal topping.

Blueberry Crisp – with an oatmeal topping

Filed Under: Desserts, Dinner, Fish, Meat Tagged With: blueberries, blueberry crisp, Melissa Clark, pork chops with blueberry sauce, salmon, salmon with blueberry sauce, The New York Times

Entertaining

July 22, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

Entertaining does not always have to mean you cooking everything, especially when you live in a city like New York. It is so much more important to get together with the people you love and don’t let anything or any excuse get in the way of that. My good friend, Susan, pointed this out to me and executed a beautiful example this past week.

We were invited to their apartment this past Tuesday evening. Now Susan always does a beautiful job. She usually makes all the food and we have such a good time getting together and catching up and discussing politics. But this past Tuesday was so darn hot here, she decided to change it up a bit. No matter, as long as you serve it with LOVE, it makes no difference.

She had her fish store, Dorian, on York Avenue between 83rd and 84th Street, deliver some beautiful poached salmon fillets with some green sauce on the side. Then she put together a gorgeous platter of the salmon with the sauce, along with some fresh cucumber and dill. She made a cold yummy rice salad ahead of time with black nicoise olives, served some gorgeous sliced heirloom tomatoes with chopped fresh basil along with some guacamole (also from the fish store). Add some warm rolls and butter and we were all set. It was so delicious and THE perfect menu for a hot summer night. Plus, she could spend the whole cocktail time with us in the living room as dinner was already made.

Dessert was a French yogurt cake she made, topped with a dallop of mascarpone cheese and fresh blueberries and raspberries. The perfect ending to a perfect meal!!
But I forgot to take a picture!!

As part of our hostess gift, we brought a little bit of the country to them – Ethel’s garlic.

Susan says they won’t be able to take the subway after eating this garlic! Taxis all the way from now on! Woohoo!

Farm stand garlic.

Fresh farm stand garlic!

Ethel and her garlic.

Ethel and her garlic

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: blueberries, cucumber, dill, Dorian's, fish market, French yogurt cake, guacamole, heirloom tomatoes, mascarpone cheese, nicoise olives, poached salmon, raspberries, rice salad, York Avenue

Happy Sunday!

January 29, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

Waffles and blueberries on a white plate.

Okay, so I made these waffles this morning (my husband was pining for them) and they look pretty good – but didn’t taste great. So I won’t share the recipe with you. I don’t know what was wrong but let me work on this recipe before I give it to you. One thing they suggested was to do this sweetened sour cream – with brown sugar and ginger with sweetened strawberries AND the maple syrup. Well I think that would have put me in a sugar coma …. and I didn’t have strawberries. But I did have blueberries and I did have the buttermilk for the batter and I did have the sour cream. I always feel so cool when I find a new recipe I want to make and I actually have most of the ingredients!

Back to the sugar – so for this, I just put a dollop of plain sour cream with some slightly sweetened blueberries and it was really really good as a topping. Now I just need to work on that base waffle!

Filed Under: Breakfast Tagged With: blueberries, buttermilk, maple syrup, sour cream, Sunday morning, waffles

Fruit!

January 5, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

So after enjoying all these wonderful meals and special treats and drinks during the holidays, I am waking up to discover that I am really fat.

Not really. But, you know, when you put on a pair of favorite pants and think they’ve suddenly shrunk in length (even though they were fine the last time you put them on), then you have to fess up to the fact that it’s the size of your hips that’s hiking them up and you know, Spanx can only do so much. So I’ve gained a few pounds and it feels really uncomfortable.

I’ve now gone back to “clean eating” – less meat, little or no carbs and having a piece of celery or a half of apple if I’m starving before dinner. It’s working. I’ve already lost 3 of the 5 pounds.

I think fruit is a wonderful thing. Some doctors have told me it’s too sweet, it has too much sugar. But it’s a natural sweetness, right? It’s refreshing, satisfying that sweet tooth craving and makes all things “right”, as my mother used to say. She would have a piece of fruit at the end of her lunch every day as well as pack an apple, orange or pear in our lunch for school. I have kept that habit up, only we have a small bowl of fresh fruit salad at the end of our breakfast everyday. What I do is make a very large fruit salad on Sunday morning, and then it lasts us for the week, making it super easy to serve up for a workday morning.

You can, of course, combine all sorts of things but I don’t recommend bananas, unless you eat them right away, as they don’t hold up. Leave your strawberries whole so they don’t break down as quickly and serve them up sooner than the rest. A pineapple is wonderful, along with grapefruit, oranges, apples, and red or green grapes. Blueberries, blackberries, mangoes and kiwi are nice as well, but need to be eaten first too.
Fruit salad with grapefruit, blueberries, bananas, and basil.

And here’s a great tip, squeeze some fresh lime juice all over your salad and then top it off with torn fresh mint leaves. I have found that the mint leaf edges will not darken as quickly if you tear them, as opposed to cutting or chopping them.

So start your new year with fruit!
Fruit salad with kiwi, orange, grapes, grapefruit, and pineapple.

Filed Under: Breakfast, Salads Tagged With: apples, bananas, blueberries, Fruit, grapes, kiwi, pineapple, strawberrires

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