Baking with Julia: Blueberry Nectarine Pie

I've totally been slacking off on Baking with Julia, but I did manage to bake one recipe this month. The last recipe for the month is this Blueberry Nectarine Pie. I'm so glad I made it because it was so incredibly good and a great use for all the fresh fruit available right now.

First of all the pie dough is the best I've made in terms of ease of making, flakiness, and taste. In the book there are several ways listed to make the dough; in a food processor, by hand, or by stand mixer. My food processor is too small so usually I make pie dough by hand, which is a pain. However, since this dough gave stand mixer directions I decided to try it and it was so much easier. The dough recipe uses both butter and shortening which I think is the best of both worlds, you get the taste from the butter and the flakiness from the shortening. Plus this recipe made two (double crusted) pies worth of dough so I had enough to freeze for a second pie. 

The filling was (obviously) blueberry and nectarine. You took half the fruit and cooked it with sugar, lemon zest, and flour and then added it to the remaining uncooked fruit. I really liked this method, there were still crisp pieces of nectarine in the filling which I thought was a nice touch.I do think in the future I would have added some breadcrumbs (a la Dorie Greenspan) to the bottom of the crust before adding the filling to soak up some of the juice but other than that I really loved this recipe.

Go visit the hosts for this recipe! 

Manchego's Kitchen

That Skinny Chick Can Bake