For a dessert to showcase summer’s finest blueberries, we wanted a crust that was super flaky, crisp, and buttery, with a sweet-tart, juicy filling. A rough puff pastry was the best choice for the crust: It is sturdier than a traditional pie dough and can hold its shape well without the walls of a pie plate to contain it.
To make the rough puff, we put butter and flour (and a bit of sugar and salt) in a zipper-lock bag and rolled over the bag with a rolling pin to create long, thin sheets of fat. Once the butter was fully incorporated, we added water to form a dough and then rolled and folded it like a letter. After rolling it once again, we coiled the dough and bent it into an “S” shape that we folded onto itself. This arrangement, which was modeled after the way scallion pancakes are shaped, created a neat, even circle that didn’t require trimming.
