The Blaeberry Pie was ever popular across Yorkshire due to Bilberries growing in abundance across the hills. Traditionally, Bilberries were gathered for Lughnasadh, a Gaelic festival marking the beginning of the harvest season and therefore plenty of food, a lot of which were preserved for days when food wasn’t readily available.
A Blaeberry pie is simply a pie made with Billberries instead of Blueberries, however, for the sake of ease, we have altered this traditional recipe to use Blueberries.
For the pastry
this recipe is for a pie in a 22 cm pie dish, including the bottom part, I only use the top for this pie so you will have some leftover dough to freeze or make little pies with
250g plain white flour
150g cold butter
1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice
100ml ice cold sparklingwater
pinch of sugar
1 egg white for egg washing the pastry
For the filling
500g blueberries
85g cane sugar (you can add 100g if you like things very sweet)
1 level tablespoon of cornflour (cornstarch)
Yorvale ice cream, to serve
Method
1. Mix flour and sugar using a food processor or by hand
2. Finely slice half of the butter into the flour, shake the bowl so the butter is covered in flour
3. Use a round knife to cut the butter into smaller pieces until the mixture resembles crumbs. You can also use a fork to do this
4. Put in the fridge for 30 minutes
5. Add the other half of the butter and do the same thing, cutting the butter into smaller pieces
6. Add the lemon juice to the water
7. Start adding the water to the flour and butter, bringing the dough together. Make sure you don’t over handle the dough, when it gets sticky, refrigerate again. The dough needs to stay cool
8. When you’ve managed to bring the dough together into a large lump, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour
9. Mix the sugar with the cornflour
10. If you would prefer to have the pastry underneath and on top of the filling, start this step after step 13, otherwise if you just want to place the pastry over the top add a layer of berries to the pie dish
11. Add a layer of sugar and cornflour mixture and keep on doing this until the pie dish is slightly heaped with fruit
12. When the dough has rested enough preheat your oven to 220°C
13. Roll out your dough on a floured surface until it’s half a cm thick
14. Line the pastry over the pie dish filled with fruit and trim the edges
15. Give the pastry a generous egg wash and score the middle of the pastry with a sharp knife so the steam can get out
16. Put the pie in the bottom part of the oven for 15 min at 220°C, after 15 min reduce the heat to 180°C and bake for 20-30 minutes
17. When ready, leave it to rest for 20 minutes so the fruit can set a little
18. Serve warm with a scoop of delicious Yorvale ice cream.
Fancy giving this recipe a try? Make sure you tag us in your creation @yorvaleltd and use the hashtag #LoveYorvale
Recipe from Pride and Puddings by Regula Ysewijn