Blueberry Crostata

This Blueberry Crostata has a cooked homemade balsamic blueberry pie filling and a flaky pie crust. It is assembled in a tart pan and has a simple lattice pie top. This Blueberry Balsamic Crostata can be made with fresh or frozen fruit and is perfect for berry lovers!

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Blueberry Balsamic Crostata

Hi hi! Just popping in to share the recipe for this Balsamic Blueberry Crostata. I made this months ago, while we were packing to leave NYC, and I have been super excited to share it with you. This Blueberry Crostata has a flaky homemade pie crust, an easy blueberry pie filling, and a super cute and easy lattice top. I made it in a tart pan, as I love how easy it makes things. Making a pie recipe in a tart pan also gives you the most amazing crust to filling ratio.

The filling is a precooked berry pie filling, spiked with some lemon zest and balsamic vinegar. It can be made with fresh fruit if that is in season for you right now, but I also tested it with frozen blueberries and it worked amazingly. This one took a whole bunch of testing so I think we ate different versions for about two weeks straight, but we loved it and I hope you do too!

Crostata is a name that is used for a galette style pie and also an Italian Jam tart made with a short pastry. This is kind of a mixture of both - a blueberry pie / blueberry tart / crostata hybrid. Whatever you want to call it, there's flaky pie dough, blueberry pie filling and a really good time.

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How to make Blueberry Crostata

This recipe is a bit of a pie / tart hybrid. I did it in the style of an Italian crostata, which usually has a jam filling but has the lattice top with filling poking through. This Blueberry pie has a cooked blueberry balsamic pie filling which is super delicious and easy to make. A few of the steps can be done ahead of time, meaning you can break up your workload and have this ready for dessert or any time pie eating!

• Make the Pie Crust. This recipe has a super simple homemade pie crust. It is the same recipe that I use for all of my pies.
• Prepare the blueberry filling. This Blueberry Crostata has a pre cooked blueberry pie filling, which can be made ahead and stored in the fridge until ready to use.
• Assemble the crostata. I did a lattice top on this as the filling is already thickened. However, you can finish it any way that you like.
• Chill. The Crostata needs to chill for at least 30 minutes before baking, in order to give the dough time to cool right down before it goes into the oven.
• Bake. Bake the crostata until the top is golden brown and the filling is super bubbly. Let it cool before serving.

Balsamic Blueberry Pie Filling

This Blueberry Crostata has a pre cooked balsamic blueberry pie filling. I love adding balsamic to berry based desserts. It cuts through the sweetness of the filling, while also adding an amazing depth of flavour.

I used my favourite Filippo Berio Balsamic Vinegar in this blueberry pie filling. Their Balsamic vinegar is amazing quality and I use it just as often in baking as I do in a salad dressing when I am making dinner. The flavour isn't super strong and it also compliments the berries in the pie filling perfectly. The balsamic vinegar goes in at the start with the berries.

Blueberry Pie with Frozen Blueberries

This is a super easy recipe if you are looking to make blueberry pie with frozen blueberries. This makes it great to make any season. I tested it with both fresh and frozen blueberries and couldn't notice much difference between them. This means you can have a perfect blueberry crostata right in the middle of winter!

Pre cooked Blueberry Pie Filling

Pre cooking pie filling, particularly for something like this blueberry crostata, is super helpful. Having a pre cooked filling cooks out some of the moisture of the berries, meaning they won't leak liquid all over the pie crust when the crostata is assembled. Pre cooking gives you a chance to cook down the filling with the thickener. This means that you know how thick the pie filling is going to be before it goes in the oven. You know how it will bake up, which eliminates that awful guessing game of 'is my pie going to be ok, or soupy in the middle'. We don't want any soggy bottoms around here, and a pre-cooked filling really helps to ensure that.

The steps for pre-cooking a pie filling are super simple. I like to do it ahead if I can - that way it is all already done, and ready and chilled.

1. Combine berries, lemon zest, and balsamic in a pan.
2. Place over heat and cook until the mixture is boiling, then continue to cook until the berries have released some of their juices and are starting to break down.
3. Combine the sugar and cornstarch in a bowl. Mixing the sugar and starch together removes any lumps you may have in the starch, reducing the chances of a lumpy pie filling.
4. Add the sugar and starch to the pan, and cook until thickened. This should only take a few minutes.
5. Transfer to a container and leave until completely chilled. Having a chilled filling means that when you assemble you aren't adding warm filling to a cold pie crust, which could make it hard to assemble.

If you need to chill the filling down quickly, you can pop it onto a sheet pan and cover with plastic wrap. Spreading it out on a pan rather than putting it in a container increases the surface area, so it chills quicker.

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How to make Pie in a Tart Pan

I used a removable bottom tart pan to make this berry crostata - rather than a more standard pie pan. I love using a tart pan for a few reasons:

• It is super easy to get nice clean edges on a tart pan. Instead of trimming like a pie crust, you can just press the pie crust against the sharp edge of the tart pan and it cuts away cleanly.
• A tart pan gives a great crust to filling ratio. A tart pan is shallower than a pie pan, so you get a thinner layer of filling to go with the flaky lattice pie topping.
• Removing this blueberry crostata from the pan is super easy. My favourite way to remove a tart from a pan like this is to use a bowl. Turn the bowl upside down, and then press the tart down onto it. The outside ring will drop off, leaving the tart on the base. You can either slide the crostata off, or serve on the base.

If you would like to make this in a pie dish it should work just fine. Just work out the capacity of your pie pan compared to the tart pan and scale accordingly for the filling. The crust recipe will stay the same.

Super Flaky Pie Crust Recipe

I used my regular flaky pie crust recipe for the crust for this crostata. It is super versatile and easy to work with, thanks to the laminations in the dough.

When dividing the dough to use for this blueberry crostata, I like to shape the two pieces into different shapes. The piece of dough that is to be used for the base crust is shaped into a disc. The one to be rolled into a lattice is shaped into a rectangle then wrapped up and rested. Starting the dough in the shape you intend it to be in when rolled out is a great way to give yourself a head start on the shape of the dough - it is much easier to roll dough into a rectangle if it starts as one!

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How to break up the workload

There are a few ways to break up the workload for this blueberry crostata. The components can be made ahead of time, then the whole crostata assembled later.

• Make the filling ahead of time. The Blueberry Pie Filling can be precooked up to a few days in advance and stored in an airtight container until ready to use.
• Mix pie dough ahead of time. I like to make a whole bunch of pie dough all at once. I wrap it tightly and then store in the freezer until I am ready. Pie dough defrosts overnight in the fridge and is then ready to use. It will also store up to a few days in the fridge if you want to make it ahead and chill until you are ready.

How to make a lattice top on a pie

I finished this Blueberry Crostata with a simple lattice top, but just placed the strips on an angle to give it an angled lattice. Lattice on pies are super simple to do, you just follow the pattern:

1. Lay out all the vertical strips on the pie filling. Make sure that the spacing is even between them. This will form your foundation.
2. Lift every second strip up and fold it back - so strips 1,3,5,7 etc.
3. Place a strip of pie dough down and carefully unfold the strips and place them back down.
4. Fold back every strip again but starting with the alternate set of strips - so lift up strips 2,4,6,8 etc and fold them back.
5. Place another strip of pie dough and reset your strips.
6. Repeat the process, alternating which strips you fold back. I like to start in the middle and work my way down, and then start in the middle and work my way toward the top of the pie.

Use the longest strips in the middle of the pie. You can use shorter strips as you get closer to the edges of the pie. If you have any strips which have messy parts on them, arrange them so that the mess part is covered by another strip of pie dough (if you like, messy parts on pies are also fine!)

See the video below for a visual guide on how to lattice a pie.

FAQ for Blueberry Crostata

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For more recipes with Filippo Berio, Check out:

• Small Batch Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies
• No Knead Focaccia
• Small Batch Dairy Free Brownies
• Pesto Scones
• Vegan Cinnamon Rolls

Recipe For Blueberry Crostata

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