The week before I hosted a dinner with law school friends at our house, my friend and law school classmate Dorothy emailed me and invited me to go blueberry picking with her and her son Liam. On a Sunday. At 8:30 a.m. I am not a morning person and it takes a lot to get me up early on a weekend. So I politely declined but asked if I could hire Liam to pick some berries for me, promising to make it worth his while. Liam came through like a champ, bringing me a small bucket of blueberries. I gave him a small sum of cash for his time and effort (which is what I had meant when I promised to make it worth his while), but apparently he was expecting blueberry baked goods. Fair enough.
So I decided to serve a blueberry dessert at our law school friends gathering, because Liam was going to be there. I went with King Arthur Flour's blueberry hand pies. I'm not participating in KAF's bakealong but I kept seeing the recipe in my Facebook feed since the hand pies were the July bakealong recipe. And it's been a long time since I've made hand pies.
I had intended to make the pies well before dinner, but I fell behind in my prep schedule and ended up having to make them at the last minute. Or to be more precise, I made the blueberry filling and dough earlier in the day, but I had to roll out the dough and assemble and bake the pies after everyone had already arrived for dinner.
The blueberry filling is straightforward. You cook blueberries, Instant ClearJel, sugar, salt, and lemon juice until the mixture comes to a simmer and thickens. I made the crust by hand, by cutting cold butter into flour, salt, and baking powder; adding sour cream; and kneading the dough briefly. I rolled out the dough, made two letter folds, and chilled it until I was ready to assemble the pies.
This task was made considerably more difficult by the fact that it was a very hot and humid day. With the house full of people and the oven cranked to 425 degrees, it was probably about 76 or 77 degrees in the kitchen, creating very unfavorable conditions for working with flaky pastry. I did the best I could, chilling the dough after rolling, and chilling the assembled pies before baking. I brushed the pies with egg wash and sprinkled on coarse sugar before putting them in the oven. I made a double batch of pies so it took me a while to get them all assembled and baked.
The pies came out looking great, with very flaky dough and lots of visible layers (and despite the fact that several pies had blueberry filling leaking out of them). I served them warm from the oven with salted caramel ice cream (by the way, the ice cream was fantastic and I highly recommend the recipe). Even though I had put in what I thought was a generous amount of filling into each pie, there was a lot of filling left over. I sent it home with Dorothy, who served it with waffles the following morning. Everyone cleaned their plates except for Liam, who I noticed ate the blueberry filling out of the center of his pie and left the dissected pastry untouched. These pies were delicious and I loved how convenient they were to serve. I would definitely make them again (although hopefully on a cooler day!) and think they were a great way to make use of the fruits of Liam's labor.
Recipes: "Blueberry Hand Pies" from King Arthur Flour and "Salted Caramel Ice Cream" by Melissa Clark, from The New York Times.
Previous Post: "So Cute! So Tasty!: Blueberry Pocket Pies," January 17, 2011.
So I decided to serve a blueberry dessert at our law school friends gathering, because Liam was going to be there. I went with King Arthur Flour's blueberry hand pies. I'm not participating in KAF's bakealong but I kept seeing the recipe in my Facebook feed since the hand pies were the July bakealong recipe. And it's been a long time since I've made hand pies.
I had intended to make the pies well before dinner, but I fell behind in my prep schedule and ended up having to make them at the last minute. Or to be more precise, I made the blueberry filling and dough earlier in the day, but I had to roll out the dough and assemble and bake the pies after everyone had already arrived for dinner.
The blueberry filling is straightforward. You cook blueberries, Instant ClearJel, sugar, salt, and lemon juice until the mixture comes to a simmer and thickens. I made the crust by hand, by cutting cold butter into flour, salt, and baking powder; adding sour cream; and kneading the dough briefly. I rolled out the dough, made two letter folds, and chilled it until I was ready to assemble the pies.
This task was made considerably more difficult by the fact that it was a very hot and humid day. With the house full of people and the oven cranked to 425 degrees, it was probably about 76 or 77 degrees in the kitchen, creating very unfavorable conditions for working with flaky pastry. I did the best I could, chilling the dough after rolling, and chilling the assembled pies before baking. I brushed the pies with egg wash and sprinkled on coarse sugar before putting them in the oven. I made a double batch of pies so it took me a while to get them all assembled and baked.
Recipes: "Blueberry Hand Pies" from King Arthur Flour and "Salted Caramel Ice Cream" by Melissa Clark, from The New York Times.
Previous Post: "So Cute! So Tasty!: Blueberry Pocket Pies," January 17, 2011.
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