I had the opportunity to experiment with my cashew pie crust this weekend when making blueberry pie for our annual farm picnic out at our local cowshare. It is best to cook the crust and filling separately or the crust gets too dark. Featured in the Hella Delicious 2012 recipe calendar. This pie-crust received a lot of complements at our cowshare’s farm day!

Makes one 9″ pie.

Crust:

• 3/4 c raw cashew butter
• 1 1/2 c chopped nuts (cashews, almonds, pecans, walnuts and/or hazelnuts)
• 3 cardamom pods, seeds removed and ground
• 5-7 fresh dates, seeded and chopped
• pinch salt

Filling:

• 2 lb blueberries
• 3/4 c honey
• 1/4 c water
• 1/2 pod vanilla
• lemon zest (optional)

Method:
For the crust, mix all the ingredients together and press out into a greased pie pan. When pressing the dough into the dish, you will probably need to oil your fingertips to keep the dough from sticking to them. Bake in a low oven (around 300 degrees) for about 10-15 minutes, until it is golden brown.

For the filling. Heat the honey, water and vanilla until reduced and it forms a thick syrup. Stir constantly and keep a close eye on it so it doesn’t burn. Add the fresh blueberries and cook for 4 minutes, add lemon zest. Allow to sit overnight, the next morning strain out the juice and reduce it until thickened, add back into berries. Remove vanilla pod. Allow to cool.

Add the fruit mixture to the pie crust. It is best if they are both cool as the crust will not be as crisp. I have tried making this as a raw dough filled with raw berries. The berries and nuts have such different cooking requirements that the crust will get burned before the berries are cooked and in the meantime the juices will have made the crust soggy.