A Tale of Two Pies

Now that we’re back home and spring is starting to make its way to San Francisco, we’ve been gathering with friends and making pie. We gathered ingredients to make a blueberry crumble pie and a savory one made with butternut squash, mushrooms, onions, fresh thyme, bay leaf, and bechamel cream.

Savory Pie

This was our first time making a savory pie. Since we didn’t have any other regular pie tins (I have several mini ones), we used a 10” springform cake pan. It came our beautifully tall and golden brown from the egg wash we applied on the top. We sauteed all the ingredients ahead of time to cook of most of the liquid, but topped all the ingredients with the bechamel cream before covering with crust. Before popping into the oven, we cut a few slits on top for the pie to breathe.

For the pie crust, we followed Julia Child’s Pie Pastry Recipe. While the shortening in the recipe does help make the crust flaky, I’m looking for an alternative if anyone has suggestions!

TIP: One of my favorite tools when making pie, is this circle pie crust cutter.

blueberry crumble pie

The blueberry crumble pie is relative simple compared to the savory one. We used the same crust recipe, but made some crumble on the side. After laying in the pie crust, we added flour to the base to avoid creating a soggy bottom. Then we layered in fresh blueberries with some sugar before topping off with crumble. We baked the pie at around 375F until it started to brown, then dialed the oven down to 350F for another 30 min (or until the blueberries started to bubble.

As we’ve never made crumble pie before, there was a moment I thought the blueberries were exploding and nearly scared my husband. We definitely had some spill over, but thank goodness we had a pan below to catch the blueberry lava.

Cheers and happy pie making!