Some recipes come from my fork, some recipes come from the bins at the farmer's market, some recipes come the dusty pages of a vintage cookbook, and every now and then, a recipe comes from just under my eyelids. I close my eyes, and it's there.
I shoot food... a lot. I shoot it for a living, I shoot it for fun, my whole life centers on how my lens interacts with what I've made. So for me, a visual of a recipe can be the inspiration for it. I saw a pie with a cookie cut-out crust, and I just knew I had to make it. Blueberry and sour cream happened because I haven't made a blueberry pie before. The bear cookie was a stroke of luck when shopping for cookie cutters. There's a satisfaction when something you hold in your head, and idea that floats just beyond the tip of your nose, becomes something flakey, gooey, and delicious on the end of my fork.
INGREDIENTS
For one 9-inch pie
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons tapioca flour (or tapioca starch)
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
6-7 cups blueberries
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sour cream
1 recipe pie crust
2 tablespoons cream
1 tablespoon white sugar
DIRECTIONS
Position rack in lower third of oven and preheat to 425 degrees F. Whisk sugars, cornstarch, tapioca, flour and salt in medium bowl to blend. Mix in the cubes of butter. Stir in blueberries, lemon juice, and vanilla, mixing thoroughly. Add the sour cream last, stirring gently and only a few times so that it ribbons through the blueberry mixture rather than completely mixing in. Set aside.
Roll out both dough disks on floured surface to two 12-inch rounds, a little under a 1/4 inch thick. Transfer to one 9-inch glass pie dish. Trim dough overhang to 1/2 inch. I took the trimmings and cut little leaves out of them for the garnish around the edge. Crimp the edge of the dough and brush lightly with cream. Pour the filling into the dough-lined dish, mounding slightly in center. Using your favorite cookie cutter, cut out pieces of dough from the other 12-inch round. Layer these pieces on top of the blueberry mixture, letting some of the blueberry mixture show through. When done, brush the cut-out dough on top with cream, and sprinkle the whole pie with a tablespoon of sugar.
Place pie on rimmed baking sheet and bake 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees F. Bake pie until filling is bubbling and crust is golden brown, covering edges with foil collar if browning too quickly, about 55-60 minutes longer. Transfer pie to rack and cool completely before cutting.
INGREDIENTS (PIE CRUST)
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
12 ounces unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup ice water
DIRECTIONS
In a food processor or quickly using your fingertips, combine the flour, sugar, salt and butter until the chunks of butter are broken down to the size of peas and the flour feels like wet sand. Add the first 1/4 cup of water and mix until the dough comes together easily. It's too dry if it immediately clumps apart. Add two tablespoons of water at a time, you can always add more water but not more flour, so careful not to add too much!
Gather the dough into two balls and plop them on top of two sheets of plastic wrap. Loosely wrap up each ball and press down, smushing the ball into a disc about an inch thick.
Pop them in the fridge for at least 30 minutes while you busy yourself with the filling.
For more recipes like this one, check out my blog The Kitchy Kitchen.