Blueberry Slab Pie

Blueberries are in season, they sweet this year and huge! You can pick up a container at most stores now. Have a bowl for breakfast with a splash of milk.  We spent part of our summers when I was a kid on Cape Cod. Blueberries grow wild there. One way to get us kids to walk the couple blocks to the beach was to promise to stop and pick blueberries along the way. The bushes were easily accessible to short people. As a matter of fact they were low enough to just sit down and feast—no bucket necessary. Except for my brother who wanted a bucket so that he could keep count of the number of berries he had picked. Inevitably he squashed them as he counted them and between that and the sand he was always covered in sandy blueberry juice. Unlike blackberries, blueberries don’t have thorns, which makes them a lot easier to pick but you do have to watch out for wasps. One summer there were so many berries that we picked berries both to and from the beach. They were particular sweet that year too so we made a couple of extra trips because we wanted to make a pie and a cobbler, and just have a bowl with a splash of milk for breakfast (my absolute favorite way to eat them). My brother had his bucket and as he started counting them he mistook a wasp for a blueberry and it stung him. He screamed and as he leapt back he stepped on a wasps nest that was in the ground at the edge of the blueberry bushes. The wasps came pouring out of the ground in a cloud and we dropped everything and ran as fast as we could away from the nest. We were dressed for hot weather with just shirts and shorts over our bathing suits. Those wasps were under our shirts and in to our bathing suits. We were all covered with bites, and spent a good long part of the afternoon in a cool bath. My poor sandy sticky brother got the worst of it cause he didn’t want to drop his bucket. I don’t remember the sting of those wasps but I do still remember the taste of those blueberries!

Cream Cheese Pastry

adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/8 teaspoon baking powder

• 8 tablespoons (one stick) of cold unsalted butter

• 4 oz. cold cream cheese

• 2 teaspoons ice cold water

• 2 teaspoons of cider vinegar
  Egg wash (1 egg whisked with 2 tablespoons of water)

  Sanding sugar for dusting (you can also use caster sugar)

Preheat oven to 400°F.

 Cut the cold butter and cold cream cheese into cubes and put in food processor along with flour, baking powder and salt. Pulse until the mixture has a coarse cornmeal texture. Have the vinegar and water measured and ready to go. Now turn the processor to on and in a steady stream add the liquid to the flour mixture. Do not overwork the dough. As soon as it comes together in the processor dump it on to a floured surface and gather it into a disk. Loosely cover the dough in plastic wrap and shape into a rectangle. Refrigerate it for 1 hour.

Photo by: Lucy Alexander

Preheat oven to 400°F

Filling:

• 1 ¾ cups of blueberries

• zest and juice of one lemon

• ¼ cup sugar scant

• 1/8 teaspoon of salt

• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

In a medium bowl add the blueberries, sugar salt cornstarch, lemon and toss. Set aside until the dough is ready. 

 Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll out to approximately 10” x 12” rectangle. Place parchment paper on your baking sheet. In order to get the dough onto the parchment without tearing it, roll it back onto your rolling pin and then holding your rolling pin at one side over baking sheet. Gently unroll the dough onto the parchment paper. You are going to fold the dough over itself, so when folded the dough will be a 5” x 12” rectangle. Work the dough quickly; if it gets too warm put it back in the fridge for 20 minutes or so. 

 Drain most of the liquid off the blueberries then add the blueberries to one half dough, spreading them along the length, leaving a 1/2” border. Sprinkle the zest over the berries then brush the egg wash along the edge of that border pressing the sides together making sure there are no gaps. At this point you can use a fork dipped in flour to make a pretty crimped edge to the dough. Brush the rest of the egg wash over the entire top of the pie, sprinkle with sanding sugar and make a couple small slits in the top. 

Bake for 40 minutes until golden. Cool before cutting so as to preserve the blueberry juices inside the pie. 

Photo by: Lucy Alexander