Raspberry Cream Crumble Pie Recipe

The Pie Hole founder Jenell Parsons shares this mouthwatering recipe from her newest cookbook, You Wanna Piece of Me?

What to say about this pie? More like, what not to say?! It has won more awards than any other pie we make. It has become a customer favourite and even been featured on the very popular food network show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. The smell of it coming from the oven is out of this world, and the only bad thing is you have to wait a few hours for it to cool down and set before you can dive in.

Raspberry Cream Crumble 

INGREDIENTS

• ½ recipe double butter crust (recipe below)

• 3 eggs

• 2¼ cups sour cream

• 1½ tsp vanilla

• ? cup flour

• 2 cups sugar

• ¼ tsp salt

• 4½ cups raspberries, fresh or frozen

• 3 cups white sugar crumble (recipe below)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Prepare a single 9-inch Double Butter Crust (recipe below). Chill the dough in the pie plate until you’re ready to assemble your pie. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until they are light in colour. Add the sour cream and vanilla and continue whisking until nice and smooth—no lumps!

3. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and salt.

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix very well to fully incorporate.

5. Fill the pie shell with ½ cup of the sour cream mixture, or just enough to cover the bottom. Top with the raspberries and smooth it out to have a nice even top. Pour the remaining sour cream mixture over the berries, using a spatula to get all of it! Top with the white sugar crumble (recipe below). Chill the pie for 30 minutes in the refrigerator or 15 minutes in the freezer before baking.

6. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Transfer the pie to the prepared baking sheet.

7. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until the edges have risen slightly and are set, the middle of the crumble is nicely browned and not too jiggly, and you can see juicy pops of sticky raspberry goodness. If the centre of the crumble appears wet, with melted butter, keep baking for another 10 minutes. Let this pie cool completely before attempting to slice it, or it will be messy.

NOTE: Add 1 tbsp of fresh zested lime to the sour cream custard for an amazingly delicious twist. This pie is best served at room temperature with fresh whipped cream.
 

Makes one 9-inch single-crust pie
 

WHITE SUGAR CRUMBLE INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup butter, cold
• 1½ cups flour
• 1 cup sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces.
2. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour and sugar for 30 seconds on the lowest setting until mixed. Add the cold butter, a few pieces at a time, mixing until you have a coarse, crumbly texture that holds together when squeezed. Do not overmix, or you will start to cream the butter, and you will lose that beautiful crumbly texture.

Makes enough crumble for one 9-inch pie

The Double Butter Crust

The crust of a pie should never take the back seat and simply be the vessel—a vessel that far too often gets left on the plate while the “good stuff” gets eaten. So I made it my mission to develop the most delicious, buttery, flaky crust possible. We use so much butter in fact that we call our pastry Double Butter crust. And let me tell you, we have all the flavour and all the flakes!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup water, ice cold
• 1 tbsp vinegar, cold
• 2 cups butter, cold
• 4 cups flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• Egg wash (1 egg. Optional splash of milk or water and a pinch of salt)

NOTE: The amount of water mixture you need will vary each time you make the dough. A number of variables contribute to this, including the moisture content in the flour (influenced by how the flour is stored), the warmth of your hands, the time of year, and how hot or cold your kitchen is. You will most likely not use all of the water mixture, but it’s better to have a little too much than not enough. And don’t fret if there is a little extra flour in the bottom of the bowl.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Start by mixing the water and vinegar together in a bowl or jug and putting it into the freezer so it’s icy cold when you need it. Cut the butter into 1-inch cubes and put them in the freezer too to keep as cold as possible while you measure the other ingredients.

To prepare the dough by hand:

1. Measure the flour, sugar, and salt into a large mixing bowl and mix to fully incorporate.

2. Add the cold butter to the flour mixture, and use your fingers to massage the butter into the flour, breaking it apart and coating it in flour. Continue massaging and rolling the butter between your fingers until you have a coarse mixture with pea- to almond-sized pieces of butter throughout.

3. Add 3 tbsp of the cold vinegar-water mixture. Slowly mix in the water with your hands, gently squeezing the butter and flour to help it come together.

4. Continue adding the vinegar-water mixture just 1 tbsp at a time, mixing it in gently with your hands. The goal is to add just enough water to get the dough to come together into a shaggy mixture—and once it gets to that point, hands off.

5. Turn to chill the dough

To prepare the dough by food processor:

1. In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, and salt until mixed. A few quick pulses should do it. Add the cold butter, a few pieces at a time, pulsing until you have a coarse mixture with pea- to almond-sized pieces of butter throughout. Do not overmix! It’s very easy to overmix, so be careful.

2. Add 3 tbsp of the cold vinegar-water mixture. Pulse a few times. Continue to add vinegar and water, 1 tbsp at a time, pulsing a few times between each addition. The goal is to add just enough water to get the dough to come together into a shaggy mixture—and once it gets to that point, no more pulsing (see note)!

3. Transfer to a floured work surface, and carefully fold any loose bits of flour and butter into the ball of dough. Folding it a few times will create layers. Next, read below for how to chill the dough.

NOTE: The more you work the dough, the more the gluten develops, and the tougher your dough becomes, so it’s really important not to overwork it.

To prepare the dough by stand mixer:

1. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, sugar, and salt on low speed.

2. With the mixer running on low speed, add the cold butter, a few pieces at a time, mixing until you have a coarse mixture with pea- to almond-sized pieces of butter throughout. Do not overmix.

3. With the mixer still running on low speed, add 3 Tbsp of the cold vinegar- water mixture. Continue to add vinegar and water, 1 Tbsp at a time, mixing for 30 seconds between each addition. The goal is to add just enough water to get the dough to come together into a shaggy mixture—and once it gets to that point, stop mixing (see Note)! I find that using a stand mixer takes the most practice and that it is easy to add too much water if you are not patient.

4. Once the dough just comes together, remove it from the mixing bowl, cleaning off the paddle so as not to miss out on any of the delicious buttery dough. Next, read below for how to chill the dough.

Then, chill the dough:

1. Bring your dough together to form a ball, divide it in half, and wrap each piece snugly with plastic wrap. At this point the dough is quite pliable, so press it down until it forms disks about 1 inch thick. This will save both time and effort when you start rolling the dough, as it’s more difficult to roll once chilled. Place the disks in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes to relax the gluten in the dough, which gives you a much more tender pastry. At this point you can also freeze the dough.

Or, for a double-crust pie:

1. Repeat steps 1 and 2 of Rolling the Dough with your second disk of dough. If you are creating a full lid for your top pie crust, try to roll the dough into an even circular shape. If you are preparing the dough for a lattice design try to roll it into more of a rectangular shape to help you cut nice even strips that will fit across the pie without stretching. Keep chilled until you are ready to assemble the pie.
2. Once you have added the pie filling to the bottom crust, use a pastry brush to brush the edges of the crust with egg wash. Make sure to get it into all the nooks and crannies as this helps the top pie crust to adhere to it.
3. Top with the top pie crust and secure the edges by pinching the bottom and top crusts together. Trim off any excess dough and flute the edges.
4. Brush the whole surface with egg wash. Follow the individual pie recipe for baking and serving the pie. Double crust, double yum!

For blind baking:

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

2. Line the inside of the prepared pie crust with parchment paper to protect the dough. Tip: Large coffee filters can also be used here instead. Add pie weights (see page 8) to keep the pastry in place, and so the heat of the oven doesn’t just melt the pastry into a buttery puddle in the bottom of the pie plate.

3. Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven, but keep the oven on. Remove the weights and parchment paper and brush the base of the pie crust with egg wash.

4. For a fully blind-baked pie, return to the oven for 8 to 10 minutes; for a partially blind-baked pie, return to the oven for 3 to 5 minutes. This cooks the additional egg wash and creates a barrier between the filling and the crust to keep the crust from becoming soggy.

NOTE: The dough can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for up to 3 days, or the freezer for up to 3 months. You will likely have extra dough left over from this recipe. gather the scraps together, wrap in plastic wrap, and store in the fridge or freezer.

Makes one 9-inch double crust (or two 9-inch single crusts) 

Excerpted from You Wanna Piece of Me? by Jenell Parsons. Copyright © 2020 The Pie Hole Holdings Corp. Photography by Janis Nicolay. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.