This Blueberry Cream Cheese Pie is a special treat that my mom often made at many potlucks and gatherings where we celebrated with lots of food! Her version was with Cool Whip and canned blueberry pie filling. As I learned how to cook more recipes, I was able to take her recipe and make everything from scratch!
You can take this recipe and make any flavor of cream cheese pie by switching the topping. Most fruits will work in place of the blueberry pie topping.
For even more nostalgia, swap your fruit topping for your favorite flavor of Jello. Fruit gel cream cheese pie reminds me of my childhood. It’s such a special and fun treat!
What makes this cream cheese pie slightly healthier?
Swapping some of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour is the first step toward a slightly healthier pie crust. You can’t even tell the difference between this version and one with all white flour unless you eat the crust by itself.
The second swap is to use Neufchatel cheese instead of cream cheese. It’s got the same consistency as cream cheese but it has 1/3 of the fat.
Lastly, we add way less sugar than some other recipes call for. Some recipes use 2 cups of white sugar in the cream cheese filling alone, which is too sweet for many people. We also use a smaller amount of
coconut palm sugar in the blueberry topping to try to minimize the highly processed sugar where we can. Less sugar will help to lower the risk of high sugar spikes in your blood, unless you eat two pieces of pie, and then that’s not my fault! :-p
Pie crust doesn’t have to be hard to make
This pie crust is the simplest baked crust you can make. Besides this recipe, it is the base for pudding-based pies like banana cream pie or chocolate cream pie. It’s just unsalted butter, flour, and a touch of salt. There’s no need to add sugar to this pie crust because there’s more than enough sweetness in the top two layers of the pie!
If you are looking for a no-bake pie crust, you can easily make a graham cracker crust with crushed up graham crackers and melted butter. Just mix it up and press it into the pan.
Cream Cheese Pie Benefits
There may not be many nutritional benefits to this pie (other than the blueberries), but it can do a lot for your developing family and mental health. For some, baking is a form of stress relief. Making pie crust from scratch and using a pastry blender gets you to use your muscles. Kids who are interested in helping (mostly watching) you make this pie can learn some reading and math skills from reading the recipe, work on their fine motor skills, and practice using their patience.
Now, many of you don’t have large families that can eat this entire pie by themselves. Baking and sharing with family, friends, and neighbors is a great way to socialize and keep in touch with others. This is great for your mental health, too. So, you have many good reasons to bake this pie!
Looking for more dessert recipes? Here are more healthish dessert recipes to try:
Blueberry Cream Cheese Pie
Equipment
- 1 9" x 13" baking pan
- parchment paper optional
- 1 Stainless steel dough blender and cutter (or 9-cup food processor)
- 1 Large bowl
- measuring cups and spoons
- 1 1.5-quart pot
- 1 small bowl
- 1 stand mixer (or electric hand mixer)
Ingredients
- unsalted butter for greasing pan
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) cut into cubes
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
- ¾ cup toasted chopped nuts optional
- 4 cups blueberries fresh or frozen
- ⅓ cup coconut palm sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tbsp water
- 16 ounces Neufchatel cheese (or lite cream cheese) at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9” x 13” baking pan with butter. (Optional: you can line it with parchment paper after greasing for easy removal.)
- Put butter, wheat flour, flour, and salt into a bowl and cut the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse sand. (Alternatively, put the ingredients in a9-cup food processor and pulse until it’s combined.)
- Mix in toasted nuts, if using. Press the mixture evenly into the bottom of the baking pan.
- Put the baking pan on the middle rack in the oven. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the crust is golden brown. Let cool completely, at least 1 hour.
- Put frozen blueberries, water, and palm sugar in a 1.5-quart pot stir well to combine. Put pot on high heat. When the blueberries come to a boil, turn heat down to medium high and stir. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Turn heat to high and bring blueberries back to a boil. Mix cornstarch and water together in a small bowl. Add to blueberries and stir until well combined. Cook for 3 minutes and turn off heat. Cool completely (about 1 hour). Mixture will thicken further as it cools.
- While everything is cooling, put room-temperature cream cheese into a mixer with a whisk attachment. Mix on medium speed until slightly whipped. Add vanilla, sugar, and heavy whipping cream to bowl. Mix/whisk on medium-to-medium-high speed until it looks like it doubled in volume. This will take about 5 to 10 minutes depending on the speed used on the mixer. Keep the cream cheese mixture cold in the fridge while the other components are cooling.
- Evenly spread the cream cheese mixture over the cooled crust. Top with blueberry topping. Put the pie in the fridge for at least 1 hour to set.
