Mustikkapiirakka (Finnish blueberry pie)
The pie of every Finnish summer cottage: a soft, cardamom-scented base with its sides pressed up, filled with wild blueberries and a tangy sour-cream and quark custard. A good extra handful of berries makes it fresher and fruitier. Vanilla sauce on the side is the classic finish.
- Time
- 95 min (20 prep + 75 cook)
- Servings
- 8
- Per serving
- 228 kcal
- Protein
- 6 g
Ingredients
Base
- 1/4 cup butter, soft
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (bleached), plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp cardamom
Filling
- 14 oz frozen blueberries, frozen or fresh blueberries (wild if you can)
- 1 1/2 tbsp potato starch (potato flour)
- 1/3 cup swedish sour cream (gräddfil), 12% fat, sour cream (kermaviili)
- 2/3 cup quark, plain low-fat quark (rahka)
- 1 large egg
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla sugar
Steps
- Heat the oven to 400°F. Beat the butter and sugar together until pale, then beat in the egg.
- Mix the flour, baking powder and cardamom and stir them into the butter mixture to make a soft dough. With floured fingers, press it over the base and up the sides of a 24 cm (9 1/2-inch) pie dish.
- Toss the blueberries with the potato starch and spread them over the dough. If they are frozen, use them straight from the freezer.
- Whisk the sour cream, quark, egg, sugar and vanilla sugar until smooth and pour over the berries.
- Bake on the lowest shelf for 40–45 minutes, until the edges are golden and the custard has set in the centre (160°F). Cover loosely with foil if the edges brown too fast.
- Let it cool for at least 30 minutes, so the custard firms up, before you cut it. Keeps 3 days in the fridge, covered.
Good to know
Bilberries or blueberries?
Finnish pie is made with wild bilberries (mustikka), which are dark right through and a little tarter. Cultivated blueberries work too, and may want a touch less sugar.
Can I make the filling with only sour cream?
Yes, that is the classic: 200 g of sour cream and no quark. It comes out richer and softer, a score of about 10 instead of 16.
Per
- Calories
- 197
- Protein
- (10%)
- 5 g
- Fat
- (36%)
- 8 g
- Carbohydrates
- (54%)
- 28 g
- of which sugar
- 12 g
- Fiber
- 2 g
- Sodium
- 108 mg
More desserts
Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 1824 kcal goes into the pot and 1029 g of ingredients comes out as about 925 g of food: 197 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.