Blueberry Hand Pies

Fruit + sugar + thickener + pastry. This isn’t a recipe, per se, so much as a technique; some of the best ones are. The blueberries around Baltimore are incredible right now—plums too. Raspberries, grapes, and ground cherries keep popping up, and it’s been a delicious season for white peaches and nectarines as well. You can make fah-ncy pop tarts out of any of this stuff by cooking a small amount of fruit into pie filling and then stuffing your favorite pastry with it. Rye pastry, rye pastry with beer, frissage’d buttery goodness, the food processor method, even a lard-based or cream cheese dough would work here: this is a pie for people who love crusts. And if you’re inclined toward blueberries, the filling outlined below is a super delicious way to go: strictly blueberries, sugar, salt, and thickener, there’s no lemon or vanilla to complicate flavors; it would work for any fruit. Here, the result is unbelievably berryish. Plop some hearty spoonfuls of cooled filling onto the pastry of your choice, seal, pinch, egg wash, toss with sugar, bake, and there you have it. Summer in an unfussy, buttery envelope.

Assembly

1 full recipe pastry (rye pastry below)

Fruit filling (blueberry below)

Egg wash + large-grain sugar

1.  Preheat oven to 400, and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Divide pastry in two, and roll out into long rectangles, about an eighth-inch thick. Working with one at a time, cut each half into an even number of smaller rectangles or squares; these are the tops and bottoms of your hand pie. I made six giant pies, but you could make little square pockets or stamp out round ones too.

2. Place your bottoms on the cookie sheet, line the edges of each piece with egg wash, then spoon your cooled filling into the middle. I used a little more than a quarter-cup of filling per hand pie. Top each piece with its matching pastry, then press down the edges to seal; use a knife or rotary cutter to trim up the edges before pinching decoratively. Egg wash the tops, coat with large-grain sugar, poke some holes or slits in the top, and chill in the fridge or freezer while you assemble round two.

3. Make sure both sets of pies are very cool before baking; about 30 minutes in the freezer should do it. Pop them into your screamin’ hot oven, and bake for about ten to 12 minutes, until pastry is golden and filling is bubbling out the top or around the edges. Cool, and enjoy! Best if eaten within one day.

Rye Pastry

Adapted from Kim Boyce, Good to the Grain

For rye dough

1 cup rye flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ sticks (6 ounces) cold unsalted butter

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Ice water

1.  Sift the flours, sugar, and salt into a large bowl, dumping any grains that remain in the sifter back into the bowl. Cut the butter into half-inch pieces and add to the mixture. Rub the butter between your fingers to break it into smaller bits, until the butter ranges in size from hazelnuts to peas; work quickly!

2.  Add the vinegar and eight tablespoons of ice water to the mixture, using a rubber spatula or your hands to cut the liquid through the dry ingredients. The dough should come together as one shaggy lump. Squeeze it together to see if a ball forms, and if it’s too dry, add more water one tablespoon at a time until dough comes together. Pile the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap, sprinkle with a few dots of water, wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight.

3.   (This next bit is a tad technical, but folding and rolling the dough like this creates seriously flaky layers of pastry.) Unwrap the dough on a floured surface and pat it into square. Roll it out to a rectangle that’s roughly 8 ½ by 11 inches. The dough will be crumbly, but fear not! It will come together. For the first turn, fold the dough in thirds like a letter; the seam should be on the left. Rotate the dough so that the seam is at the top and parallel to your body, and roll out into an 8 ½ by 11 rectangle again. Fold and roll again, and repeat the process for a third, final time. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for another hour at least, until ready to use.

Blueberry Filling

1 pound blueberries

2 ounces granulated sugar, or half honey, half sugar

.5 ounces cornstarch or tapioca starch

healthy pinch salt

1.  Whisk all your dries in a bowl, making sure the cornstarch is well blended. Toss the berries and dries in a wide, shallow pot, and cook over the highest heat, stirring all the while. The mixture will be dry at first, but in just a few minutes, the juices will start flowing and the filling will turn dark, beautiful purple. Continue cooking until filling boils, then boil for two to three minutes, until the opacity and smell of the cornstarch dissipate; you shouldn’t be able to taste it at all. Pour the filling out into a dish, press plastic to the top to prevent a skin, and cool in your fridge for about an hour or two.

Black Fruit Tart: Figs, Grapes, and Blackberries

Years ago, there was one particular tree in my Berkeley neighborhood that dripped with Black Mission figs all throughout the summer. Its proximate sidewalk was littered with sweet, rotting fruit—this was prior to the agricultural foraging maps that are all up on the internet now—and every walk or bike ride braked for a figgy snack. It was cherished excess.

When I finally moved out east, I was sorely disappointed to learn that figs are somewhat of a rarity ‘round these parts, and good figs are even more of a wonder. But a few weeks ago, our oyster shucker and resident knower of things was explaining an island off the coast of Maryland where an acquaintance is growing a whole orchard of four heritage fig breeds. This mythical person infrequently gives cuttings to compelling Baltimore folks, apparently. And a few days ago, our barista brought in a bucket of the most beautiful, tiny, yellow and purple figs foraged from my neighborhood (BUT WHERE?!). So maybe the figs aren’t so plenteous as be sidewalk litter, but they’re here.

Originally plotted to be a breezy peach and blueberry pie, this tart happened when my market proffered black seedless grapes, blackberries, and Celeste figs all on the same table. So rich that it’s almost savory, this is a bitter chocolate and red wine tart, or a sitting outside at 3:00 a.m. talking with your roommate and not missing California tart. A west coast dessert with a dark and jammy east coast edge. The rich fruit combination won’t be for everyone, but the fruit + jam technique will work to showcase whatever your summer has on hand, be it nectarines and blueberries, plums and currants, peaches and more peaches, or your long-lost favorite fruit. The method, inspired by Kim Boyce, is also here with an apricot blackberry tart, and here, with an apricot sugar plum tart.

Black Fruit Tart

Makes two

1 full recipe pastry dough (below)

24 to 30 figs, stemmed and halved if small, quartered if large

1 cup blackberries

1 cup black seedless grapes, whole

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons black currant jam

4 tablespoons sugar

pinch salt

1 egg + milk + large-grain sugar for finishing

1. Divide your pastry in two, and work with one piece at a time. Roll out your dough to two 15-inch circles; trim rough edges. Slide onto the back of two parchment-lined sheet trays and chill while you prepare your filling.

2. Add your washed and cut fruit to a large bowl, and toss with two tablespoons of jam, your sugar, and salt.

3. Smear a quarter-cup of jam across each pastry round, one at a time, and evenly divide and arrange the fruit in a circle, leaving a two- to three-inch border of crust. It’s okay to freewheel it here: the piled look is just fine. Fold the edges of your crust up, pleating as you go, then freeze for about a half-hour to rechill your dough.

4.  Meanwhile preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Whisk your egg with a splash of milk until no streaks remain, and brush the top of your crust with it. Toss your large-grain sugar generously and evenly over the tart crust and center. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, rotating pans halfway through, until crust is deep golden brown and filling is bubbling. Can serve hot out of the oven or cooled to room temperature!

Pastry Dough

From Apt. 2B Baking Co. and I Made That!

12 ounces pastry flour

1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

8 ounces (two sticks) very cold butter

4 to 6 ounces ice water

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1.  On a clean counter, dump your flour and salt; mix it around with a bench scraper. Chop one stick of butter into quarters, and cut it into the flour with your bench scraper. When butter is about the size of lima beans, cut in the second stick, pulling, folding, and tossing with the bench scraper as you go, until the butter is about the size of quarters. Add the vinegar to the ice water.

2. Using your fingers, flick the water onto the butter-flour mixture, gently folding with the bench scraper all the while. You have added enough water once the mixture holds together when squeezed; it should still be very shaggy.

3. Next, push the butter into the flour. Using the heel of your palm, push a small section of the dough down and away from you; this creates long layers of butter in your dough, which translates to long flaky layers in your crust. Use your bench scraper to scrape up the smear, and put it a bowl. Repeat until all the dough has been smeared and you have a bowlful of long, buttery layers. Push these into one mass, divide in half, wrap each in plastic, flatten into disks, and chill at least two hours, or better yet overnight.