New Toppings

And so begins a new month.  New month brings a new rotation, for me that is the NICU.  In celebration of this (HA!) I give you a new way to make blueberry pie.  I've always made the pie with a double crust.  However, when I went to my friend's house for Easter her husband said he liked crumb toppings...so I decided to give that a try.  When I pulled it out of the oven it looked perfect! 

I was so excited and couldn't wait to cut into it to see how the inside did.  Well, I had to use frozen berries because the fresh berries were SOOO expensive.  Unfortunately, it created a bit of a soupy pie.  I'm sure it was from the frozen berries. 

The funny thing is that everyone at lunch thought is was the most set blueberry pie they'd seen!  My friend's husband thought it was the best part of lunch!  And the topping...delicious!  I got the recipe from here.  I used the filling recipe from my Papa's pie and the crust from my Granny.

Crust
1 cup sifted flour (usually use AP but accidentally used self rising and it worked well.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 T water
1/3 cup shortening

Sift flour and salt into bowl. Remove 1/4 cup flour and blend to a paste. Cut shortening into remaining flour until pieces are size of small peas. Add paste to flour mixture. Mix with fork until dough comes together and can be shaped into a ball (this is best done by putting a piece of saran wrap over the bowl, dumping it, and pressing the dough together.) Place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. Roll out crust to 1/8 inch thick to cover 9-inch pie pan

Filling:
1 quart (4 cups) or a little more blueberries
3/4 cup sugar
3 T flour
2 T corn starch
1/4 teaspoon salt
Mix dry ingredients. Fold in berries to coat. Place in deep dish pie crust.

Topping
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons butter

In a medium bowl, stir together the brown sugar, oats, flour and cinnamon. Mix in butter using a fork until crumbly. Spread the crumb topping evenly over the pie filling.  Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes.