Bilberries grow wild in Finnish forests. People forage them for their own use every fall.

You are either a fan of crispy bilberry crust or brioche (pulla) crust if you live in Finland. This is a forever-ongoing dispute between my father and me. My favorite is cake crust, and he loves pulla. He can’t stand the quark that I would love to have in my pulla dough pie, so I have to bake this pie without it. Compromises, compromises…

Bilberry (metsämustikka) and blueberry (pensasmustikka) are two different berries, although they belong to the same berry family. Though in Finland, bilberry is often mistakenly called blueberry. I was wondering why? After discussing about this, with my expat Finnish friends, we came into the conclusion, that blueberry was the word thought for us in the school, in English lessons. Blueberry was not that popular in Finland or known that time . I think it’s time to correct that mistake.

Blueberry was introduced to Finland in 1940. In Piikiö Olavi Meurman started to farm them. Blueberry was crossed with Bog Bilberry to make it more hardy towards winter and sicknesses. It has always been farmed berry never wild in Finland. Blueberry gained more popularity sometime in the 80s-90s, but bilberry is still the favourite berry of Finns. Blueberries grow as a bush, like in this picture on the Blueberry farm of Sokkila.

Berries are also bigger than bilberries.

Bilberry grows as a scrub , and low ,as you see in lower picture. It’s really easy to see the difference between these two berries.

This recipe is for whole-oven sheep.

Dough:

• 3 dl water or milk
• 25 g fresh yeast or a packet of dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 dl sugar
• 3 dl fine rye flour
• 5 1/2 dl all-purpose flour
• 75 g butter or margarine
• 1 tbls crushed cardamon

Filling:

• 8 dl blueberries
• 1 dl sugar
• 2-3 tbsp potato starch

Egg wash:

• 1 egg

Instructions:

1. Warm the water or milk to lukewarm. If using dry yeast, the liquid can be slightly warmer, around 42 degrees Celsius. Crumble the fresh yeast into the liquid or mix dry yeast with the flour. Add salt, sugar, and cardamon to the liquid. The egg is optional but gives the pie a good texture. Add fine rye flour and all-purpose flour. Knead the dough until soft. Finally, add the softened butter.
2. Cover the dough bowl with a cloth. Let the dough rise for 20-30 minutes.
3. Knead the dough again. Roll it lightly on a floured surface into a thin sheet slightly larger than the pie dish or baking sheet. Complete the dough sheet on parchment paper, making it easy to lift onto the baking sheet.
4. Flavor the blueberries with sugar. Mix in potato starch to absorb the juice released by the blueberries. Spread the blueberries over the pie crust. Roll out the remaining dough into a thin sheet. Brush it with egg wash and cut it into thin strips. Place the dough strips in a lattice pattern on top of the pie. Fold the edges slightly over the filling. Brush the edges of the pie with egg wash.
5. Bake the blueberry pie on the lower rack of the oven at 200-225 degrees Celsius for 30-45 minutes or until the pie is cooked through, including the bottom. If using a convection oven, you can reduce the baking temperature to 175-200 degrees Celsius.
6. After baking, let it cool down before cutting. You can serve this with vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce.