This Blueberry Pie is one of my longtime favorites. I originally thickened the filling with ground instant tapioca, made from tapioca pearls. If you're up for grinding pearls yourself, that method still works beautifully—but these days, thanks to the rise of gluten-free baking, tapioca flour (or tapioca starch) is much easier to find and works just as well.
Whole Tapioca Pearls in Fruit Pie
These days, I often default to the original ⅓ cup of all-purpose flour as the thickener, especially when I don’t have ground tapioca on hand. I also prefer a crumb topping over a traditional top crust—it adds texture and lets the blueberry filling shine. (You can see what that looks like below; the crumb topping directions are in the notes.)
If you do want to stick with tapioca, tapioca flour is now available at many mainstream grocery stores. You could also try arrowroot as an alternative, though I haven’t tested exact substitutions yet. Spruce Eats has some helpful guidelines on how much to use if you’d like to experiment.
These days I still make Blueberry Pie with ground tapioca if I have some, but more often than not I just use the original ⅓ cup all-purpose flour. I also like to top it with a crumb topping instead of using a second crust. Here's what it looks like with crumb topping. Directions are in the notes section. If you want to stick with tapioca, tapioca flour is now available at a lot of mainstream grocery stores. You might also consider using arrowroot. I haven't tested the amount of tapioca flour or arrowroot, but Spruce Eats gives some guidelines.
Recipe
Blueberry Pie
Ingredients
Crust:
- 2 ½ cups all purpose flour (315 grams)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons sugar (25 grams)
- Pinch cinnamon optional
- 12 tablespoons shortening, cut into chunks (144 grams)
- 6 tablespoons butter, grated or just cut up (84 grams)
- ⅓-1/2 cup cold water
Filling:
- 4 cups fresh blueberries see note
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- ¼ cup tapioca ground up in coffee grinder (or ⅓ cup flour)
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¾ cup sugar
Instructions
- Combine flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl or in the bowl of the food processor. Using a pastry cutter or your fingers (or the processor, if using), cut the shortening and butter into the flour mixture until crumbly. Add water a few tablespoons at a time, stirring until dough holds together. Shape into one big ball, then divide in half and make two spheres. Place each sphere in a zipper bag.
- When ready to make pie, proceed as follows. Place berries in a large mixing bowl and toss with lemon juice. Combine ground tapioca, cinnamon and sugar. Pour over berries and stir to coat berries. Let sit for about 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, remove one sphere of pie dough from refrigerator but keep it in the zipper bag. Roll dough out in zipper bag. Cut side of zipper bag. Invert dough circle over 9 inch glass pie plate and carefully peel away zipper bag. If dough seems too sticky to work with, throw it in the freezer for a few minutes. Poke holes all over dough with a fork, press a piece of foil gently over the pie dough shell, weigh down with pie weights and bake on a rimmed baking sheet at 400 degrees F. for 10 minutes.
- While the pie shell bakes, take out second half of dough and roll into a big circle. Cut into ¾ inch strips.
- Put the blueberry mixture into the baked pie shell, arrange the strips in a lattice pattern over the blueberries, set on a rimmed baking sheet and bake at 400 for 35 minutes.
Notes
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar, golden okay too
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
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