TWD - I Found my Thrill on Blueberry Hill

My hostess was happy when I offered to bring the TWD blueberry pie to her July 4th celebration. The 4th was a glorious day in Saratoga Springs. The temperature was in the mid-70s and there were no clouds in the sky. I started the morning with a kayak paddle on Fish Creek (the dog went along and took a swim – amazing for a terrier), a lunch of fresh tomato sandwiches in my friend Deb’s beautiful garden and finally a late afternoon picnic dinner. It was the best 4th celebration in recent memory.

The pie was devoured by the picnickers. I added some homemade vanilla ice cream (from Dorie’s recipe) to round out the dessert. The crust recipe was more like a cookie with the abundant butter in the pie dough and although a little tricky to roll out, it held up very well. My motto that butter makes things better was especially true for the pie dough. Heck, the pie dough was good enough to eat raw -- did I mention I sampled it? With the filling, I used fresh blueberries but as suggested by other Dorettes tinkered with the bread crumbs. In my pie I substituted crushed Nilla cookies for the bread crumbs. It added some complexity of vanilla to the flavor along with the lemon zest which the picnickers really liked. I didn’t reduce the amount of sugar in the pie, just went with the cup she recommended.