Apple Blueberry Crumble Pie

This recipe makes the best fruit pie I've ever tasted!  My husband actually thanked me for not cooking it often because he'd be very, very fat.  I improvised the recipe quite a bit since I wanted something less sugary (but it is still very sweet) and more spiced than usual.

I had never mixed fruits in a pie before, but was trying to put a different twist to the "gender reveal food" craze by using blueberries for boy or raspberries for a girl.  Just so happens that blueberries (and huckleberries) are my husband's favorite...

Yep, it is actually 4 inches tall.  Stack those apples high!

The Recipe

Crust

• Any frozen 9-inch deep dish pie crust*

Filling

• 1 C frozen blueberries (fresh would work, but frozen are cheaper!)
• 5-7 granny smith apples
• 1/4 C sugar
• 1/4 C brown sugar, packed
• 3 T all-purpose flour
• 3 slightly mounded tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 T butter, room temperature

Crumble topping

• 1 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1/2 C brown sugar, packed
• 3 slightly mounded tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 T butter, chilled, in thin slices.

Directions

• Preheat oven to 425.
• Thaw the pie crust by setting it on the counter now.
• Thaw the frozen blueberries.  I microwave them for 1.5-2 minutes.  Press the berries just a bit and drain the liquid out and discard (or drink).  If you don't drain them, your pie will definitely be spewing purply sauce as it cooks.  Distribute blueberries evenly across the bottom.
• Mix the following filling ingredients:  sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon.
• Mix all the powdered crumble topping ingredients, then add the chilled butter slices and mix until the consistency is that of wet sand.  This can be done with a pulsing mixer, but I like to do it by hand (about 5-6 minutes) because it is super satisfying to play with wet sand. 
• Peel and core apples, and slice them thinly.
• Pile that thing as freaking high and tight with apples as you can!  Put the larger slices around the outside edge like bricks in a tower, and use the smaller broken pieces in the center.  After each layer is put down, add a little (maybe 1-2 very heaping tsp) filling mixture as a layer of mortar.  Channel Tetris.  (You don't have to use all the filling mixture... if you have excess, use it on the next pie, on top of buttered toast, in oatmeal.)
• Now take the 2 T of room temperature butter, and plop bits of it into 5-7 pores on the top between apples.  This will just melt down into the filling later.
• Apply the topping evenly, hiding all evidence of apple slices.  This is easier if you start with a cupped handful of topping and press it to the outside edge, then draw any excess up.  It's like building a smooth sand castle.  Fill all crevices, and firmly pat the thing smooth and beautiful.
• To cook:  Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then lower temp to 350 and bake for 35 minutes.
• Cool on the counter for at least an hour before serving.  Can be refrigerated for up to 2 days before the pie-eating event.
• If this is a gender-reveal pie, pick a neutral color (I used black) of frosting and just cover any spots where berry juice leaked through.  I made 2 pies the first time... one turned out great with just one teeny leak, and the other was a volcano of berry liquid because I didn't drain the blueberries, so just be prepared.

*Note:  I may be awesome at pies, but having a pie tin I'm not afraid to lose at a gathering means I just never make bottom crusts from scratch.  I should probably learn to do this.