So Cute! So Tasty!: Blueberry Pocket Pies

A few weeks ago, I bought a lattice pocket pie mold from Williams-Sonoma that was on sale (marked down from $10 to $5).  These little clamshell-shaped plastic molds include cutters to form the bottom and top crusts of a miniature pie, and then you are supposed to use the mold to crimp the top and bottom crusts together around a filling of your choosing.  Williams Sonoma has offered pocket pie molds in a variety of shapes (heart, star, apple, pumpkin), but I think that the lattice top is the most versatile.  I hardly ever make pies, but the prospect of being able to make adorable little pies with lattice tops was too much to resist.

The pie mold came in a box with a crust recipe on the back (the recipe is also available on the Williams-Sonoma website here and here), which is made in the food processor from flour, sugar, salt, butter, and ice water.  You chill the dough in the fridge, roll it out, and then use the mold to cut out the fluted top and bottom crusts.  I didn't have any trouble rolling out the dough or cutting the crusts, but I ran into a lot of problems trying to use the mold to crimp the top and bottom crusts together.  First, I found that the dough stuck to the mold.  Also, it was difficult to get the fluted crusts to line up exactly before crimping, and the pies looked like a bit of a mess.  Finally, I figured out that it was easier just to crimp the crusts together by hand (well, I used the tines of a fork), and there was no need to go through the hassle of using the mold for this step.  

I made a blueberry pie filling (cooking blueberries with sugar and lime juice until the berries released their juices; straining out the juice, reducing it and thickening it with cornstarch; then finally reuniting the cooked berries with the thickened juices).  After filling the pies and crimping them shut, I froze them for half an hour, brushed them with egg wash, and sprinkled coarse sugar on top.  Before I put them in the oven, they looked like this:

These pies bake pretty quickly (in a little over 20 minutes), and came out of the oven beautifully golden brown.  While some of the blueberry juice did run out of the lattice top, I still thought that the pies were beautiful. 

I was very pleased with the way these little pies turned out.  The crust was tender and buttery, and it was not soggy at all.  Also, the pies were easy to handle -- I had expected that the lattice tops would make them fragile, but they were sturdy and stackable.  Plus, something about the fact that they were so dang adorable just made them all the more enjoyable.  I hope to make many more varieties of cute fruit pies with these molds in the future!

Recipe: Pocket pie crust recipe from Williams-Sonoma, available here and here.