Makes approximately 32 3-inch pie cookies.Ingredients for Pie Crust
2 ½ cups flour (whole wheat pastry or all-purpose)
6 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 ½ sticks cold unsalted butter
~½ cup ice water
Ingredients for Filling
2 ½ cups blueberries
½ cup sugar (my blueberries were a little sour, lower this if yours are riper)
juice and zest from ½ lemon
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Method
- Mix the flour, sugar, and salt together with a fork.
- Cube the butter and “cut” it into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter until there are no butter bits that are bigger than a pea. Make sure you don’t go smaller than this, however, since you’ll start to lose flakiness if the butter is too small.
- Add the ice water, a tablespoon or two at a time and use a fork to wet the flour/butter mixture.
- Keep adding until the dough just starts to hold together. You don’t want the dough too wet, and you don’t want to mix in the water too much. I find it useful to just use my hands to mix at this point.
- Divide the dough in two, cover each half with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for a couple hours at least (overnight is best). This is especially important with the whole wheat pastry flour since it makes the dough a little easier to work with.
- Toss the blueberries, sugar, lemon juice and zest, butter, and cornstarch in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Preheat your oven to 350° F.
- Line the bottom of a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Remove one of the covered dough halves from the refrigerator. Divide this in half and roll out on a floured board.
- Using a 3-inch round cutter, cut eight circles out of the pie dough. Place these on the parchment paper, evenly spaced.
- Spoon a small amount (5-6 blueberries and a little sauce) into the center or each pie circle.
- Cut eight more circles out of the pie dough (you may have to gather the scraps and re-roll it out). Place each circle on top of the blueberry-topped bottom circles. Press down the edges with something thin (the top of a paintbrush or pen would work). Brush with egg yolk and sprinkle with sugar. Cut some small slits in the top.
- Bake for 10-14 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly. Cool on a wire rack. Repeat in three more batches with the rest of the pie crust and filling.
Update – I’d previously said I’d used a 4.5″ cutter. Turns out it was 3″.
http://buildingbuttercream.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/blueberry-pie-cookies.html