What’s Cooking Today? Wild Maine Blueberry Pie
For me, a perfect pie is all about compromise. In the crust, if you use all shortening and you get tons of flakiness, but no flavor, so I do half unsalted butter and half shortening. For the liquid, instead of all water, I do half ice water and half vodka (cheap is fine). This prevents the gluten in the flour from over-developing but doesn’t give the dough an off flavor, since the taste from that amount of vodka burns off in the oven. For baking, I start out at 425°F for a half hour to get good color on the crust, then drop the temp. to 350° for the last half hour to allow the filing to finish cooking. Speaking of filling – no compromise there – fresh fruit is best. But if you are in a pinch, use frozen instead of canned. Here’s an article I wrote about pies for the Boston Globe with some great recipes. #WCT
