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I love blueberry pie. When blueberry season comes around, I indulge like you would not believe.

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Makes a 9-inch double-crust pie

For the CRUST, follow this link. As the dough is chilling, make the filling.

For the FILLING:

8 cups (4 pints) fresh^[2] blueberries
½ cup^[3] sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
Zest from ½ lemon
¼ tsp cinnamon

Place blueberries in a large bowl. Stick your hand into the bowl, grab a bunch of berries, and fist’m. Crush them little buggers up a good one. Do it again. This’ll help your berries get a head start on breaking down. (Don’t go nuts. Two fist-squishes ought to do it.) Add sugar, butter, cornstarch, flour, lemon zest, and cinnamon; toss to combine.

ASSEMBLY (for an impressive 9-inch pie, producing 12 lovely slices)

1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon heavy cream

1. Mound the blueberry mixture in your pie shell. (Hell yeah, that is a lot of filling! This pie is going to be glorious!) Place the top crust on top. Tuck edge of top dough between edge of bottom dough and rim of pan. Press both layers of dough along the edge of the pie plate to seal, and crimp as desired. 2. Cut several vents in the top crust and push them open just a tiny bit. Aside from allowing moisture to escape from the filling, you’ll use the vents to see whether or not the filling is boiling, so it’s important to place them in several areas, including the center. You can spend a lot of time and effort making your crust decorative, but my perspective is that it’s pretty just because it’s a homemade pie, man. In a small bowl, whisk together egg yolk and cream. Brush surface with egg wash. Refrigerate pie about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400°F, with rack in lower third. If you have a baking stone, use it. Otherwise, place a baking sheet on the rack.

BAKING

Bake until crust begins to turn golden, about 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Continue baking, rotating sheet halfway through, until crust is deep golden brown and juices are bubbling, 40 to 50 minutes more. Transfer pie to a wire rack to cool completely.

You can trust that the ratio of flour and cornstarch to berries is spot-on and will produce an excellent filling. I would never shit you on this; I’ve scienced the fuck out of it. Nonetheless, here’s the part where art meets experience. Two things need to happen in the oven:

1. The filling has to come to a full, solid boil.
2. The crust has to cook through and brown.

Sounds simple enough. If the stars align for you, both these things will happen at the same time. I’m here to tell you, though, that they usually don’t. Let’s talk about the filling first. When I say “a full, solid boil,” I don’t mean, like, hey, I think I saw a bubble. I mean that you should be able to see it actively boiling through the vents,^[4] all over the pie – not just in one spot – but particularly at the center. This pie has so much filling, that it should spatter right through the vents. It will help a lot if you start out with berries that are at room temperature, rather than refrigerated. Now let’s talk about the crust. What usually happens is that while you’re waiting for the filling to spatter, the crust is already deeply browned and is clearly turning the corner that heads to Burnsville, which pressures you to convince yourself that the filling is probably done, and you take the pie out of the oven too early. Or you actually arrive at Burnsville, and the edge of your crust is ruined. You can combat this by covering the pie very loosely with foil for part of the baking time, or by using a pie ring. I almost always do this. In fact, I probably should just make it part of the basic instructions.

Easy as Pie

At first, I’ll let the blueberries sit on the counter, and I’ll eat them out of hand, add them to cereal, toss a few into a salad, or make pancakes, waffles, and muffins (and even turn those muffins into bread pudding). Once the berries start to soften, I’ll keep them in the fridge and use them for pies, butters, homemade pop tarts, pies, more pies, and jam. And even more pies. I fucking love blueberry pie more than Obama loves healthcare. Whipped cream; that is not an option. I also do not pre-bake the shell. I know this will cost me points one day in a prison bake-off, but I just don’t like a crispy bottom.

“Easy as pie” is a misleading phrase, unless you’re talking about buying a Hostess Fruit Pie from the local 7-11 and downing it with a Slurpee. That is easy. Stepping up from there, throwing a frozen pie into your oven seems easy, although it requires “pre-heating the oven,” which qualifies as “difficult” for people who buy pre-made Jell-O cups. If you could satisfy yourself with a pre-made crust and filling from a can, pie might be on par with making a BLT with bacon you actually fried yourself. But unless what you’re after is thick purple goop with an occasional small lump that you assume might be a berry, in a crust that tastes like a cross between wet cardboard and newsprint, then you have few choices: buy a pie from a good bakery, or man up and bake one from scratch. I’m telling you, though, this pie is worth far, far more than the effort involved.^[1] Not only will you be proud of yourself, but everyone who tastes your pie will admire you and become your willing food slave for life. Let’s face it, the difficulty is in the crust. There are loads of tips and tricks you can research. IMHO, the best you can do is to spread out the work, so you’re not doing it all at once. That makes the whole process seem less laborious.

Serving

Do not cut into it while it’s warm; it will be too runny and you won’t taste the flavors the way you should. Let it come to room temperature – which takes forever, I’m sorry … you just have to have discipline. In fact, you should let it rest overnight, on the counter, if you can muster that kind of self-control. Bonus: then you can have your inaugural slice for breakfast. Ah, that is living. Once you’ve sliced into it, if you don’t eat it all (congratulations), putting what’s left of it in the fridge will extend its shelf life, especially if your house is warm. If you are a self-control Zen master, you will not eat it stone cold from the fridge, unless you’re doing so in a fit of the uncontrollable munchies. Instead, let a plated slice sit out until it comes closer to room temperature … a half-hour, perhaps. The butter in the crust is not at its best when chilled and the filling – although luscious when refrigerated – will lose a fraction of its flavor definition. At room temperature, the crust will feel lighter and flakier, and you’ll taste the blueberries more directly.

Deconstructed Pie

Want an alternative to pie that involves a lot less work? No rolling, no crimping, no guessing whether your filling is fully cooked? Click here.

Break It Down, Now

1 cup of blueberries weighs 133 g
1 Tbs sugar weighs 15 g
¾ tsp butter weighs 4g
½ tsp cornstarch
½ tsp bread flour
Pinch of cinnamon

Notes: