TWD—Baking With Julia—Blueberry Nectarine Pie

Blueberry Nectarine Mini Pie

Tuesdays With Dorie—Baking With Julia this week was a pie.  I made the pie crust for this pie last week.  It chilled in the fridge for a few days.  I thought I was going to get the pie made on Saturday, then Sunday, then yesterday it was then or I wasn’t going to get it done in time.  It worked nicely to already have the pie crust dough made.  I was excited to see how the dough rolled out.  I’ve tried so many pie crusts over the years and some really are hit or miss.  Dorie said with this recipe that it will be one you’ll always want to have with you and use. 

I followed the filling recipe almost exactly, except that since we have a freezer full of blueberries, I used frozen blueberries even though the recipe suggested fresh ones.  I also added an extra cup of frozen blueberries to the mix, using four cups instead of the three.  I did use fresh nectarines, using only two as each one cut up was a cup.  I decided to do more of a dice on the nectarines as I didn’t want slices of it throughout the blueberry pie.

   While the blueberry/nectarine filling cooled, I started rolling out the crust.

The dough was quite sticky and no matter how I tried, it stuck to the counter every time I tried rolling it out and lifting it up to put in the pie plate.  Grrr.  Never fear—I decided to try making mini pies and hoped I’d have better luck with smaller amounts of dough.  It actually got to where the more the dough became closer to room temperature instead of cold that it was easier to work with.  I thought that was strange since it is usually preferred that a pie dough be cold when you’re working with it.  Maybe I just hadn’t made the dough the right consistency before chilling it?  At any rate, I starting rolling out four inch pie crusts and placing them in my two mini tart pans and two mini cake pans and ended up with four great looking mini pies. 

I decided to just bake one pie and the other three are in the freezer.  My parents are coming to stay a weekend in two weeks before they go on a mission for our church for a year.  They will be serving in Omaha, Nebraska which we think will give us great reason to go visit our Midwest friends and see them within the next year.  Anyway, I decided my mom would love her own mini pie, since she doesn’t eat chocolate and that is often included in the goodies I make.

I played around with different edges to the pies.  After being so frustrated with the dough, it became much nicer to work with the more it was “played with”. 

I baked one pie for about 35 minutes.  When I scooped all the filling in to each pie, I did not add all the extra filling juice that was there, it seemed like a lot.  Probably since I’d used frozen blueberries.  The pie that I baked turned out great.

So glad I made the TWD recipe this week.  If you’d like the recipe, our hosts this week will have them on their blogs.

Liz at That Skinny Chick Can Bake made a great looking lattice for her pie.

Hillary at Manchego's Kitchen made her pie with blueberries, raspberries and nectarines and made a crumb topping.

Have I ever mentioned I like pie?

Yep, I do. ;)