Blueberries are delicious to eat on their own, but nothing fills the spot like a blueberry pie, the problem is when I go to slice into my creation – there’s nothing but a soupy lake of blueberries, what gives? It’s not that a blueberry sauce is bad, but just that I want to eat my pie with a fork and not a spoon. I’ve tried many thickeners, and I think this trick will also be your solution to a sliceable blueberry pie.
As tasty as blueberries are, they contain a lot of liquid which is great for a raw treat, but not so good when you want to bake blueberries, the skin generally bursts under the high heat, and the juices seep out.
Many methods for baking with blueberries call for using tapioca or cornstarch to thicken and bind the filling, but baking thickeners is always a fine line because if you use too much starch, you’ll be eating glue. Adding extra thickener will make things taste chalky and gloopy and any actual flavor will be lost to the starchy taste.
So to get extra thickening power without the added powdery starch, opt for apples. Grating just one apple into your next batch of blueberry pie will give you the texture and thickness you want. The pectin in apples acts as a natural thickener, gelling the mixture together as it bakes in the oven.
Why grate your apples? Grating a peeled apple is the most unobtrusive way to incorporate the apples into your pie, the grated pieces practically dissolve into the filling, and the apple pieces are smaller than the blueberries, so it is the blueberries, not the apple, that’s the star of the show.
In tandem with using tapioca or cornstarch in your filling, add one medium-sized apple grated into your blueberry pie recipe. Though all apple varieties have pectin, Granny Smiths are the best option because they are readily available all seasons and have naturally tart flavors that complement the blueberries.