Here is my official recipe for the sweet tarts and pies section of the Modern Baker Challenge, and boy, did I make a good choice. Hubby just declared that blueberry crumble pie is the best so far, even better than the amazing bourban-scented pecan-walnut tart or the to-die-for bittersweet chocolate tart.
I've been enjoying my mini tart pans, so that we can try a lot of recipes without having a lot of extra desserts floating around, but I don't have any small pie plates. I asked my dad, who was able to dig up an 8 1/2" pie plate, just slightly smaller than a regular 9". I used a little under 3/4 of the sweet tart crust recipe (about 270 g) and exactly 3/4 of the topping and filling recipes. It all fit perfectly.
The crumble topping was made by combining melted butter with light brown sugar, and then stirring them into a flour, baking powder, cinnamon mixture.
To start the filling, I put about 1/4 of the blueberries into a saucepan with sugar. These were cooked over low heat until the blueberries gave up their juices and started to boil. Then a corn starch/water mixture was added and the blueberries were stirred until they thickened into a nice syrup. Finally, the blueberry syrup was folded into the rest of the blueberries and some fresh nutmeg.
I scraped it all into the pie plate and then had to take a picture of the empty bowl, which was an incredibly beautiful deep purple color. As I was sprinkling on the chunks of topping, the process began to feel familiar, and I suddenly remembered that the blueberry crumble muffins were my very first official Modern Baker post; I guess I'm pretty predictable! With the muffins, I hadn't used all of the topping. NM himself actually left comments for most of us on the Modern Baker Challenge website, and in my comment, he said that I should've used all of the topping. So even though it seemed like a lot, I used it all this time.
I let my pie bake for the full 40 minutes; the crust was starting to get a little dark, but it needed the full 40 minutes for the topping to cook through all of the way.
We served it with some of the best vanilla ice cream that I'd made last night. I cannot describe how perfect the flavor combinations were: the fantasticness of the ice cream was almost overshadowed by the amazingness of the blueberry pie. Mmmm, I could go for another piece right now........You must try this recipe.
