Strawberry Blueberry Pie
Summer calls for a perfectly sweet and tart strawberry blueberry pie surrounded by a golden brown pie crust and topped with creamy vanilla ice cream.
How to make Strawberry Blueberry Pie
Not rocket science or anything, just a perfectly beautiful golden buttery crust with a kind of sweet, kind of tart strawberry blueberry filling that’s topped with creamy vanilla ice cream. The perfect July 4th recipe because you can make it days in advance!
The pie crust
This pie crust recipe is super simple to make and has never failed me! & I’m not a fancy pie kind of girl. If you’ve been here a while, you’ll know that cakes are more my thing. So I’m telling you this pie crust turns out perfectly for me every time.
This pie crust recipe is also used it in my apple butter pop tarts and basically every other pie recipe that uses a pie dough.
I did make one little change here, I used half brown butter. I only did half because I already had some prepared but you could brown the whole butter.
Make sure to look at the images as a reference to see how the dough should look at each stage. If you do all brown butter, you may need just a tiny bit more water.
Ingredients:
- Flour: I just use all purpose flour. There is such a thing as pastry flour and I know some people like cake flour for pie crusts too but all-purpose works perfectly here.
- I also HIGHLY recommend using a digital scale, as flour is almost always over measured.
- Sugar: I add just a touch of granulated sugar to the pie dough. If you swap this for brown sugar, you may need to cut back on some of the water.
- Butter: You can do all butter, all brown butter or half and half like I did. Just make sure to give the brown butter time to chill back until it’s hard again. I have not tried this recipe with shortening or lard so I can’t recommend them, although I don’t see why they wouldn’t work here.
- Water: you’ll want ice cold water. I measure my water first, pop it in the freeze while I get the rest of my ingredients ready and then bring it out when I need it (make sure it doesn’t actually freeze).
The strawberry blueberry pie filling
Oftentimes when you make fruit pies with a juicy fruit filling, you end up with a soggy crust. That’s because the fruits, especially fresh berries (and frozen) release a lot of juice in the oven, making it difficult for the bottom crust to bake through. There’s a few ways to combat this:
- Dice the strawberries and then mix them with the blueberries, sugar, lemon juice and zest. Let this mixture macerate for about an hour or so. Then strain it and you’ll see all the juice that’s been released. I actually strain it twice, once at about half an hour in.
- Before filling the pie, toss the fruit mixture with cornstarch. At first I tried just ¼ cup of cornstarch but the filling leaked quite a bit so I usually do about ⅓ cup cornstarch to 2-2.5lbs of fresh fruit.
- (You can squeeze in 3 lbs of fruit in this recipe as well but do ½ cup cornstarch then and about ¼ cup more sugar).
- Once you’ve laid out the bottom pie crust into your pie plate, dust the bottom with about a tablespoon of cornstarch, this will help soak up some of the excess juice.
- Don’t bake at convection – a convection (fan) oven uses a fan to rotate the heat more evenly throughout the oven. A conventional (no fan/conduction) oven usually has the heat coming from the bottom. If you bake at convection, the top can brown quicker than the bottom will bake.
- With a conventional the heat coming from the bottom goes directly to that bottom layer so it’ll bake slightly quicker without browning the top too much.
How to put the pie together
I went really simple with this one lol. I just rolled out my top dough into a slightly smaller circle than the bottom. Then fold the edge of the top crust underneath the bottom crust and crimp the edge with your fingers by pressing down every other finger width apart. Slice a few slits in the top
I did a full covered pie crust for three reasons:
- I love how it looks
- It’s the easiest to do (besides a streusel, of course)
- You get more pie crust to filling ratio this way!
I really do need to practice doing a lattice crust on top of the filling next time. I know it’s still early summer but I am looking forward to making apple pie in the fall – ohhh or maybe even an apple strawberry pie later this summer?! We’ll do a lattice top for that…maybe lol, no promises.
Tips for getting the pie crust just right
- Temperature matters: to create a flaky crust, you want the butter to be cold so it doesn’t melt into the other ingredients. To keep the butter as cold as possible I like to put my flour and sugar in the food processor bowl and then freeze the whole bowl while I cube my cold butter.
- Add the butter to the bowl and freeze while you measure the ice cold water. For ice water, I just put 1-2 ice cubes in the cup and then measure the water or measure the water and freeze it for a few minutes.
- Temperature matters again: Refrigerate the pie dough after you’ve made it and once it feels a little more firm, about 30-60 minutes later, you can roll it out. I roll out half at a time (so the bottom crust first and then the top crust) so the other half doesn’t’ t get too warm.
- If you’re making designs with the top crust and it starts to feel sticky/soft, just refrigerate it again for a few minutes.
- Temperature matters one more time: You want the pie crust to hold its shape while it’s baking. If you bake room temperature pie dough, the butter will melt right out and the crust will shrivel up.
- What you want to do is, once the pie is all done, pop it in the fridge or the freezer for about half an hour before baking. You want the crust to be firm and cold before baking so that it holds its shape.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use other fruit?
Yes, you can make a mixed berry pie by adding in raspberries and/or blackberries. I’ve also made this pie with some cherries. Just keep in mind if your fruits are super ripe and juicy, you may want to increase the cornstarch to ½ cup (64g).
Can I use a store bought pie crust?
Yes you can use store bought pie crust but I don’t know if it’s just me, I always feel like store bought pie crusts have a slightly bitter taste? But it will definitely work for this recipe.
Can I use frozen fruits to make a pie?
You can use frozen strawberries and blueberries (or any other frozen fruit) to make this pie but frozen fruits generally release more water than fresh fruit so I definitely recommend increasing the cornstarch to at least ½ cup, if not ⅔ cup.
Why is my pie leaking everywhere and not setting
If you slice the pie while it’s warm, it will definitely still leak some of the juices out. It needs to come to room temperature in order for the filling to set properly.
Mine was still just a slightly warm when I sliced it for these photos. If you want to eat it warm, you can either embrace the mess or just microwave the slice for 10-15 seconds after slicing it.
If you want to make it a little less runny, another option is to use 1/2 cup (64g) cornstarch instead of the 1/3 cup (42g).
How to store Strawberry Blueberry Pie
After the pie comes to room temperature, it can sit out for a few hours but then make sure to cover it and refrigerate it. It’ll be good in the fridge for about a week but the crust will get more stail over time.
I have not tried freezing the pie (baked or unbaked) but I do freeze the pie dough in advance and just thaw it in the fridge a few hours before rolling it out.
Thanks so much for reading today’s post, if you have any questions just comment down below. Make sure to leave it in the comment section because I can’t answer in the rating section :).
If you make this strawberry blueberry pie I would love to see it so make sure to tag me @baranbakery on instagram.
As always, have a blessed day and happy baking!
Love, B
Thought I had 2.5 lbs of berries. Oops, I didn’t! I did have some fresh peaches. Peeled and chunked. Truly the most delicious pie…..and extra points for finally finding the best pie crust. All recipients did the OMG eye roll with 2 thumbs up approval, but I gave you full credit! THANK YOU!
Wow Allie this is the sweetest comment! I’m so happy it all worked out, you def can’t go wrong with adding peaches to anything lol thank you so much for the review!!
It was so good, not too sweet. This was my first berry pie and I’m glad I started with your recipe. I followed your tips by taking the liquid out and putting a little bit of cornstarch to the bottom of the crust, no soggy bottom that so many complain about. I’m so glad I found your recipes.
So glad you liked it ?