Friday, July 31, 2009

Blueberries! Rosie Makes A Blueberry Pie And Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream.

Blueberries.
 What to do with 5 pounds of blueberries?
 Let's see ... I could make blueberry muffins.
 A lemon custard highlighted with blueberries.
 A cheesecake accented with blueberries.
 As I'm pondering what to do with 5 pounds of blueberries, 
Mr. Hawthorne told me to do something fast
 as I only had 4 cups of blueberries left.
  Pesky kids. 
They eat everything.
 Mr. Hawthorne wanted a blueberry pie.
 And, of course, Mr. Hawthorne always gets what he wants. 
Isn't that right, Mr. Hawthorne? 
Here's the money shot
so I'll hope you'll continue to read on.
Ahhhh ... My beautiful berries.
 For $2.00/pound.
 Handpicked by Mr. Hawthorne and me.
 In 93 degree heat.
 Fresh. 
Picked with LOVE.
 And I'm certain they were much better
 than the California berries at Food Lion for $1.88/pound.
 Mine were bursting with just-picked blue flavor.
 Food Lion's were bursting with ethylene 
and the flavor of containment and possibly Botrytis and Anthracnose.
 Now, on to my pie. 
First, the crust: 
My mise en place:
 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour 
1 teaspoon salt 
grated zest of 1 lemon 
2/3 cup Crisco, chilled 
1 TB lemon juice
 4 TB ice cold water 
I combined the flour, salt, and grated lemon peel. 
With a pastry blender,
 I cut in the shortening until the pieces were the size of small peas. 
I lightly mixed in the lemon juice and ice water ... 
... until the dough held together. 
I rolled the dough out on a floured board. 
 
To transport the dough to the pie dish,
 flour the dough, and gently roll it up with the rolling pin ... 
... and place at one end of the dish and carefully unroll. 
Trim off the excess and crimp the sides.

 Now for the filling: 
4 cups blueberries
 7 tablespoons corn starch
 2/3 cup sugar
 (I actually used 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup Splenda to make Mr. Hawthorne happy.) 
1 teaspoon cinnamon
5 TB lemon juice 
First, I mixed the sugars, the cornstarch, and the cinnamon. 
Then I added in the lemon juice. 
Stir to make a smooth mixture. 
Pour the blueberries into the prepared crust. 
Pour the sugar/Splenda/cornstarch/lemon mixture
 evenly over the blueberries. 
Next I made a crumb topping. 
My crumb topping ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
 1/2 cup flour
 1/4 cup butter 
Just mix the ingredients together ... 
... and sprinkle over top. 
Here's my blueberry pie ready for the oven. 
Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour. 
As you know, nothing goes to waste in the Hawthorne Household.
 I took the excess pie dough, rolled it out, and cut these little rounds. 
I sprinkled cinnamon and sugar over top 
and popped them in the oven for about 10 minutes,
 or until nice and crispy and browned. 
I ended up with these yummy little bites. 
 While the pie was cooking, I thought to myself, 
"Self, you need to make some homemade ice cream." 
Nothing better than home made vanilla ice cream
 to top a hot, fresh-out-of-the-oven blueberry pie. 
Not too long ago,
I had made some home made vanilla ice cream 
when Mr. Hawthorne requested a blackberry cobbler
 for the Fourth of July.
 That particular ice cream base was a custard. 
It was a cooked base with cream, milk, and eggs.
 And it needed to cool in the fridge
 before being poured into the ice cream maker.
 I didn't have time to cook a custard mixture and cool it,
 because I wanted the ice cream ready when the pie came out of the oven.
 Sooo ...
 I made up an ice cream.
 My ingredients:
3/4 cup 1% milk
1/2 cup sugar
 2 cups whipping cream
 1 TB + vanilla 
 (I used 1% milk since that's what we have in the house. 
Otherwise, I probably would have bought whole milk. 
And I already had whipping cream in the fridge.) 
I mixed the milk and sugar ... 
 
... and whupped it up for about 2-3 minutes.
 
I added in the vanilla.
 
I added in the whipping cream, mixed well, 
then poured it into my ice cream maker. 
After about 20 minutes, my ice cream is ready. 
And so is my pie. 
I took my little cinnamon/sugar rounds and decorated the pie edge with them. 
There are no words to describe this. 
So I'll just shut up ... 
... and eat.
 Caution: If you make this,
 there's a very good chance you'll experience a foodgasm. 

4 comments:

  1. Crumb toppings are guaranteed to provide me fine foodgasms every time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Foodgasm sounds good to me. This looks amazing .. Im gonna show my hubby and see if he wants me to try my hand at this. I have no ice cream maker however, so Ill have to use store bought.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rosie.

    Blueberry pie is my favorite! My step mom makes it for Mr. Ange & I for our birthdays every October and we literally get in fights over that pie every year. Yours looks SPECTACULAR. Fresh ice cream & those little cinnamon scraps to boot? Foodgasm is RIGHT!

    Love it!

    xo Ange in the WI

    ReplyDelete
  4. This looks great. I could stand a foodgasm like that.

    ReplyDelete