I recently got a subscription to the New York Times cooking app and have been looking through there for recipe ideas. I knew that I wanted to make something with the blueberries we got from a local farm this weekend, so I looked through the app to see what recipes they had. I came across a recipe for Blueberry Pie with a Cornmeal Crust that sounded interesting so I decided to use that as a jumping off point for my pie.
I liked the idea of some cornmeal in the crust to give it extra crunch and there was the juice and zest of one lemon in the filling that sounded good too. On a whim, I decided to add the zest of one lemon into the crust and, to make it really interesting, some dried ginger. I wanted enough ginger that you could tell it was there, but I didn’t want it to be overpowering so I settled on 1 1/2 tsp. To take it another step in presentation, I decided to make it a lattice topped pie instead of a full crust.
In the recipe, it said to process the dough until it came to a ball, but if I had done that, it would have been way overworked. I settled on pulsing it until the dough started to just come together, which was perfect.
We had a bit of a mishap when baking the pie. When it came time to turn down the oven temperature, I asked my husband to do it, because I was in the middle of kneading some dough. I noticed that the oven had beeped to say that it was preheated about 10 minutes later and remarked to my husband that it was strange because the oven doesn’t usually beep when you turn the temperature down. Well, we have a double oven and as it turned out, what my husband did was turn off the lower oven where the pie was, and then he turned on the upper oven. So after the pie had been in for the cooking time, it looked baked but not golden. I happened to notice at that time, that the wrong oven had been set on! I decided to try putting the pie in the upper oven and see if I could get the crust baked properly. No soggy bottoms for us! After 20 minutes more baking, I got the crust to where I wanted. However, in taking the pie in and out of the oven a couple of times, I seem to have knocked some of the edge off, so it’s not as polished looking a pie as it could have been 🙂
Thank goodness, when we tried it the crust was perfectly cooked! We loved this pie! It wasn’t overly sweet and the cornmeal in the crust gave it a great crunchy texture. I decided to change two things after trying it: The pie was a bit runny, so I have upped the amount of cornstarch from 30 grams to 40 grams. I also decided to reduce the ginger to 1 1/4 tsp with 1/4 tsp of cinnamon to balance it. We did like the ginger flavour in it, but I found I wanted a bit of cinnamon too.
Lemon-Ginger Blueberry Pie with Cornmeal Crust
This pie has a great textured crust with the addition of cornmeal. The lemon, ginger and blueberries compliment each other perfectly.Ingredients
-
For the Crust
- For the Filling
Instructions
- Blend flour, cornmeal, sugar, lemon zest and salt in a food processor.
- Add butter and shortening, then pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal.
- Add 4 tablespoons ice water and blend until dough starts to come together, adding more ice water, a half-tablespoon at a time (up to 2 additional tablespoons), if dough is dry.
- Divide dough in half, flatten into two round disks, wrap in plastic and chill at least 1 hour.
- Meanwhile, in a large bowl, make the filling: whisk together sugar, cornstarch, ground ginger, cinnamon, salt and lemon zest.
- Fold in 4 cups blueberries, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon water. Let stand at room temperature about 45 minutes until juices form.
- Gently fold in the remaining 2 cups blueberries.
- Heat oven to 400 degrees.
- On a floured surface, roll out one dough round to about a 10 inch round. (Keep the other round in the fridge while you work).
- Transfer rolled-out dough to a 9-inch pie pan, leaving an inch hanging from the plate, and fill with blueberry mixture. Put pie in the fridge to chill while you roll out the other round of dough.
- Roll out the second round of dough into an approximate 9 1/2 inch round. Cut in to 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) strips.
- Lay half of the strips evenly over the pie, then lay the other half diagonally over top. Trim and crimp the edges of the crust.
- Brush top of pie with milk and sprinkle with demerara sugar.
- Place pie on a lined baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes.
- Reduce oven temperature to 350 F and bake until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling, about 35 minute more.
- Spoon any escaped juices onto pie. Transfer to a rack and cool completely before serving.
Blend flour, cornmeal, sugar, lemon zest and salt in a food processor.
Add butter and shortening, then pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal.
Add 4 tablespoons ice water and blend until dough starts to come together, adding more ice water, a half-tablespoon at a time (up to 2 additional tablespoons), if dough is dry.
Divide dough in half, flatten into two round disks, wrap in plastic and chill at least 1 hour.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, make the filling: whisk together sugar, cornstarch, ground ginger, salt and lemon zest.
Fold in 4 cups blueberries, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon water. Let stand at room temperature about 45 minutes until juices form.
Gently fold in the remaining 2 cups blueberries.
On a floured surface, roll out one dough round to about a 10 inch round. (Keep the other round in the fridge while you work).
Transfer rolled-out dough to a 9-inch pie pan, leaving an inch hanging from the plate, and fill with blueberry mixture. (Rolling the dough over your rolling pin is an easy way to transfer the dough.) Put pie in the fridge to chill while you roll out the other round of dough.
Roll out the second round of dough into an approximate 9 1/2 inch round. Cut in to 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) strips.
Lay half of the strips evenly over the pie, then lay the other half diagonally over top. Trim and crimp the edges of the crust.
Brush top of pie with milk and sprinkle with demerara sugar.
Place pie on a lined baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 F and bake until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling, about 35 minute more. Spoon any escaped juices onto pie. Transfer to a rack and cool completely before serving.
[…] Lemon Ginger Blueberry Pie with a Cornmeal Crust — Margot Dreams of Baking […]