Blueberry Hyssop Pie

Slumpy little slice!

Our long-time cheesemaker, Arlene, is nursing her green thumb right along with her curd hands. Her garden out back runs amok with oodles of purple onions, more broccoli than we can shake a fork at, giant sunflowers, and hordes of a sweet little herb called hyssop. Previously unknown to me, hyssop has this week made its way into my iced tea, my lemonade, a goat cheese blueberry parfait, and inevitably, this pie. Known as licorice-mint in some parts of the country, and distinct from the same-named hyssop of the Mediterranean, anise hyssop hails from the mint family, lingers faintly like anise, and has a bit of balmy lemon flavor. It’s outstanding, in other words, and a lovely way to welcome into our kitchen the forthcoming months of blueberries.

As my dinner on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday, this pie has been, in a way, the dessert soundtrack to what’s starting to feel like the gradual diminishing of summer. There still remain several scorching weeks and we haven’t even scratched the surface of blackberries yet, but everything on the farm is being completed with a frantic eye toward autumn. We’re plucking the very last of the raspberries for our cheesecakes, making camembert every week for the fall, an aged cheese each Friday for winter, and adjusting as the goats slowly start to produce less and less milk. After a week of ardor and strange news, Arlene and I reveled in a quiet, far-away Saturday night spent at the lake. With bellies full of pie and beers in tow, we drove out to our secret diving rocks on Schoodic Lake to catch the purple sunset and a swim few leisurely laps before it got too dark to tell which way was up. It has been unexpected the way a town of 80 and farm of five manages to make me feel so grateful for moments of respite, which seem especially fleeting now as we prepare for fall. Fortunately, there are avenues for getting away, and sinking into a lake or this pie are surely two of them.

Blueberry Hyssop Pie

Inspired by Heidi Swanson's Blueberry Lemon Verbena Pie

Crust

2 sticks unsalted butter, very cold
½ cup to ¾ cup ice water
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

1.  Start by cubing your butter into half-inch pieces.  Put these in the freezer while you ready the rest of the ingredients.  Measure three-fourths cup of water, add some ice cubes and set aside to chill.

2.  Mix all of your dry ingredients to a large shallow bowl. Working quickly, cut the butter into the flour mixture with your pastry blender, or by rubbing the butter into the flour with your fingers. Continue until the butter pieces range in size from oatmeal flakes to lima beans.

3.  Drizzle just 4 ounces of the ice water (minus the cubes) over the butter flour. Using a rubber spatula, cut the moisture quickly into the dough, gathering it together as you do. If the dough is too dry, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together in a shaggy mess. Push the dough together, divide into two equal pieces, and wrap in plastic wrap.  Flatten into disks about five inches in diameter, and store in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably longer.

Filling

⅔ cup granulated sugar

25 fresh hyssop leaves chopped to equal ⅓ cup (scroll down for photo)
2 pounds of blueberries
⅓ cup all-purpose flour or cornstarch
¼ teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
zest from juiced lemon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg plus one tablespoon water, whisked until no streaks remain
Large-grain or natural sugar for sprinkling

1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. With a mortar and pestle or in a small bowl using the end of a tapered rolling pin or handle of a wooden spoon, grind the sugar and herbs together to release the hyssop’s flavor. This takes about five minutes, and you’ll see the sugar start to clump together with the oils when you’ve gone far enough. Add blueberries to a large bowl, and gently toss with sugar, flour/cornstarch, and blueberries.

2. Roll out one of your two pasty dough disks to 11 or 12 inches, and fit into a 9-inch pie plate with about one inch of overhang. Pop in the fridge while you roll out your second disk to a roughly 12-inch circle, and if there’s room, place this disk on the back of a cookie sheet and slide it into the fridge while you assemble the pie. Pile the berry mixture into your lined pie plate, carefully mounding in the center until berries start to spill down the sides. Pour lemon juice over berries, dot with butter, and top with lemon zest.

3.  Center top pastry dough over the berries. Pinch the edges of the two crusts together, roll them under the bottom crust, and pinch decoratively. Cut slits in the top for steam vents. Brush the top crust with your egg wash, sprinkle with large-grain sugar for crunch, and place pie on a foil-lined baking sheet. Pop in the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, checking often after the 25-minute mark to ensure that crust isn’t burning. If it is, just place a sheet of foil over the top. Remove pie from oven when crust is deep golden brown and filling is bubbling, and allow to cool to room temperature for several hours. Leftover pie keeps well in the fridge!

The only green this blog has ever known.

Jammy Date and Fig Swirls

I've been on a cookie roll (ba dun ch!) the past week or so, thanks in no small part to Lottie + Doof's killer annual 12 days of cookies series on his blog. While I tend toward salty-sweet, chocolaty, coffee-y, and other darkly flavored cookies and baked goods, Tim has a lot of fruit-filled, unique flavors in his repertoire that are always intriguing. These cookies don't sound all that special on the Epicurious post where the recipe is originally from, but Tim's praise and photos made them seem like an amazing, modernized Fig Newton, and that they are! The cream cheese- and butter-dough has a light anise flavor that even my anise-averse pal thought delicious, and the fig and date purée bakes up into a deep, jammy filling that is so delicious both hot out the oven and cooled the next day.

Plus, these cookies are total stunners. I brought them to a holiday party at Ginger Root -- a local artisan boutique run by two awesome ladies where I also sell earrings -- and the plate of swirls got a lot of love, 'specially among the folks slinging back the punch while they shopped. Whether on your dessert table at home or scattered among designer wares, these cookies are appropriately holidayish and easy to love.

Jammy Date and Fig Swirls

Adapted from Gourmet via Lottie + Doof

The precision in the directions might seem fussy to some, but don't worry too much about being perfect -- the cookies will turn out lovely no matter what size your rectangles and rolls are.

1 cup packed soft dried figs (8 oz), stemmed and coarsely chopped

1 cup packed pitted dates (7 oz), trimmed and coarsely chopped

1/3 cup water

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons anise seeds, ground in an electric coffee/spice grinder

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened

4 oz cream cheese at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 large egg yolk

1/4 cup large-granulated raw sugar

1.  Purée figs and dates with water and two tablespoons granulated sugar in a blender or food processor until almost smooth.  

2.  Whisk together flour, anise, baking powder and soda, and salt in a small bowl. Beat together butter, cream cheese, and remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at moderate speed until pale and fluffy, about three minutes. Beat in vanilla and yolk until combined well. Add flour mixture and mix at low speed until just combined.

3.  Halve dough and form each half into a rectangle. Chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, about one hour.

4.  Roll out one piece of dough between two sheets of wax paper into a roughly nine- by seven-inch rectangle, about one-third-inch thick. Remove top sheet of wax paper and drop half of fig mixture by spoonfuls onto dough, then gently spread in an even layer, leaving a one-fourth-inch border around edges. Starting with a long side and using wax paper as an aid, roll up dough jelly-roll style into a log. Roll log in raw sugar to coat completely. Make another log in same manner. Chill logs, wrapped in wax paper, until firm, at least four hours, or well-wrapped up to three days.

5.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut logs crosswise into one-third-inch-thick slices and arrange slices about two inches apart on baking sheets that are lightly buttered or lined with parchment paper. Bake in batches in middle of oven until pale golden, 15 to 17 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool. (Tanglewood note: Gourmet recommends strongly that you bake only one sheet at a time in the exact center of the oven; I did this, but I don't really know how crucial it is.) Cookies will keep layered between parchment paper in an airtight container for up to one week.