You’ve just gotta have faith in me. There are a lot of things in this recipe that you have to take my word for. Mammacakes didn’t trust me on the pie crust recipe, and when she made it, she added double the water and the crust was tough (and it shrank). She was also doubting that blueberry and ginger work together.
I have done it before – put these two unlikely friends together (remember my gluten-free buckwheat crepes with blueberry ginger syrup?) those were pretty darn tasty.
Mammacakes and I were craving pie. Although, after all the amazing food at this weekend’s Gluten & Allergen Free Expo (tickets are on sale for the expo in Dallas in September, and I will most likely be there!), I am not sure why on earth I wanted a pie. It might have had something to do with Lena from Cup4Cup and Joy the Baker making gluten-free quiche and having such a lovely crust.
Yep. That was it. I had crust envy.
And I needed a recovery bake. (It is a real thing, I swear!). So, dear friends, I made a pie.
Pies don’t have to be perfectly frosted or fussily decorated. Even when they are too juicy or over baked they are still pans of delicious kitchen winning. I don’t know why you are all so very scared of pie crust – you can make it by hand with nothing more than a fork and a bowl (although having a pastry blender and a grater are easier for doing it by hand and a food processor makes it a cinch).
So, please, try making pie crust yourself; that one from the Whole Foods Bakehouse is mediocre at best. And then share it with a friend. They will be impressed with your mad pastry skills.
Oh, and a little announcement before I go – I am writing an ebook series and the first one, all about gluten-free cookies, comes out May 1. If you sign up for my newsletter (you won’t get spammed, it is a monthly newsletter plus announcements like this coupon for the ebook), you will get a discount on the first book in the series! (They will retail for $3, but you will get $1 off if you are an email subscriber!)
| Gluten-free Blueberry Pie with a Ginger Streusel Topping |
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- For the filling
- 6 cups (30 ounces) frozen blueberries
- 1 cup sugar (or you can use Swerve sugar-free alternative)
- 6T tapioca starch*
- For the crust**
- 15 grams ground flax seeds
- 45 grams brown rice flour
- 45 grams sweet white sorghum flour
- 30 grams sweet rice flour
- 20 grams tapioca starch
- 20 grams corn starch
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 stick butter, frozen
- 1 tablespoon vodka, ice cold
- 1/4 cup ice water
- For the Streusel
- 20 grams (1 1/2 T) Brown Sugar
- 60 grams (1/3 cup) crystalized ginger chunks
- 47 grams (about 1/3 cup) of your preferred gluten-free flour (can be a blend or sorghum or brown rice flours)
- 42 grams (3T) butter
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Add the vodka and then add the water a little bit at a time. You want to add water just until you can get the dough to start to come together. If you add too much water, your crust can get tough.
- Pat the dough into a 4″ disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 30 minutes while you make the filling.
- While the dough is chilling, combine the blueberries, sugar or sugar substitute and tapioca starch in a large pot.
- Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the juice starts to thicken.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In the bowl of a food processor, combine the brown sugar, crystalized ginger, gluten-free flour, butter and vanilla until the mixture is evenly mixed. It should look like chunky wet sand.
- Roll out your crust and line your pie pan, making sure to crimp the edges of your crust so you have a pretty pie.
- Pour your filling into the crust shell and top with the streusel. When you put the pie in the oven, consider placing a cookie sheet under the pie pan. It helps the pie bake more evenly, and it will catch any spill over if your oven is not level or your berries didn’t cook down quite enough. Bake for 35-40 minutes. If the crust starts to brown too quickly, cover the edges with foil.
- Let the pie cool. When this is served, the tapioca starch will have set and made it easy to serve without juice spilling all over the place. If you like your pie juicier, leave out a tablespoon of the starch.
*You can use arrowroot, but it will not thicken as well and there will be a difference in flavor.
** You can replace all of the flours and flax with 1 1/4 cups of an all purpose blend. If you are going to use a blend, I recommend Cup4Cup Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour available at Williams Sonoma.
Loved meeting mamacakes at the expo. 🙂 I could tell she is very proud of you. Pie sounds fabulous and I will have to check out the buckwheat pancakes too.
Vodka, eh? That’s something I haven’t heard before. Very interesting.
(p.s. Just googled it. Apparently I’m so out of the cool kids baking secrets loop.)
I have been reading cooks illustrated since I was a kid. They let the secret out a few years ago 🙂
I guess I’m out of the loop too. What does the vodka do?
Also, what would you say to using maple syrup or honey instead of white sugar to keep it more natural?
Sounds delicious, by the way!
A liquid sugar would mess with the consistency. You could use a raw sugar like turbinado or we used Swerve this weekend which is a natural sugar alternative. You could also try coconut palm sugar – Brittany from realsustenance.com uses it.
Vodka evaporates at a different rate than the water, so you always get a flaky crust 🙂
I get the corn starch and tapioca, but what is the vodka doing in a gluten free recipe- surely someone allergic to gluten would also not be looking to have alchohol snuck into their diet…
But I trust you on the ginger-blueberry mix.
Vodka, even when made from grain, is gluten-free. Gluten protien gets left behind in the distillation process
If you are sensitive to the other parts of the grain in addition to the gluten, you can use potato vodka (Chopin is a brand) or vodka made from grapes (Ciroc is the easiest to find, and is the vodka that I usually purchase).
Being gluten free is no reason to avoid alcohol! In moderation, it is perfectly fine to consume.
I am throwing a bridal shower for my soon-to-be sister-in-law and she and her mother suffer from celiac disease. We are planning a brunch and I was planning on making gluten-free brownies for dessert and gluten-free blueberry muffins, but what other foods can I make for them? Is a frittata okay? Bacon? Sausage? I need help. I don’t want to bug her with all of the details because the bride should not plan her own shower.
Chris
Yes please! This sounds divine, Mary Fran. 🙂