One year after planting, my garden is beginning to bear fruit. On two bushes, blueberries are darkening by the day, bending thin branches as they cluster and swell under the sun.
It'll be at least a month until they're ripe, maybe longer. Watching them grow outside my window, I can't help but daydream about what I'll do with my eventual harvest. It'd be easy to drop a handful in yogurt and granola or pancake batter for breakfast, but I find myself wanting to give the berries a more dramatic finish.
As someone who is led by intuition in the kitchen, often measuring by eye and substituting ingredients on a whim, I sometimes find baking intimidating. It requires precision and even science — at the very least, a respect for how certain elements interact.
Pies seem especially difficult, requiring that you master several parts and successfully put them together. There's the crust, the filling and optional flourishes such as latticed pastry tops. The more I thought about it, the more a pie seemed like the perfect vehicle for celebrating my eventual blueberry bounty.
While I wait for my garden fruit to ripen, I'll be practicing pie-making with store-bought blueberries. I'm hoping that by the time mine are ready I'll be a bona fide (home) baker. I'm also keeping a couple of easy, back-up recipes handy, just in case I have extra berries.
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Flaky Pie Crust
Good crust is my favorite part of eating pie, so it's a key step to master as I set out on my baking journey. This recipe from Noelle Carter includes tips from local chefs and bakers, including Nicole Rucker of micro-bakery Fat & Flour. In the recipe, Carter provides guidance on how to choose the right fat for your crust, whether to use a metal, glass or ceramic pie dish and more.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 20 minutes
(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
Blueberry Night Sky Pie
KCRW's "Good Food" host Evan Kleiman has been hosting her pie contest since 2011, and her picturesque Blueberry Night Sky Pie recipe is the one I'll be using once my blueberries are fully ripe. The golden pie crust has an easy-to-remember 3-2-1 ratio and teases juicy, inky-purple berries through moon and star cutouts.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 hour 20 minutes
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
Blueberry Biscuits With Rhubarb Compote
This biscuit recipe from Genevieve Ko feels perfect for the season with tart blueberries and rhubarb, plus lime zest in the biscuits and its juice in the compote. I predict I'll be leaning on it when my pie-making experiments yield leftover fruit and my sweet tooth is sated. The biscuits also can be frozen for a ready-to-reheat potluck option.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 30 minutes
(Ren Fuller / For The Times)
More-Berries-Than-Batter Blueberry Muffins
This blueberry-packed muffins recipe from Ben Mims will serve as another stepping stone as I build my baking skills. Mims claims it's easier than blueberry pancakes, and with just five steps required, that just might be true.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 40 minutes
(Ben Mims / Los Angeles Times)
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