MIXED BERRY STREUSEL PIE

Mixed Berry Streusel Pie image

Why this recipe works:Fresh berries guarantee a pie with great flavor, but their juices can make for a sodden crust and streusel. We wanted a pie that avoided this pitfall and featured intense berry flavor, that would slice neatly and that would have a crisp crust and crunchy streusel topping. A hybrid dough made by replacing some of the flour in our No-Fear Pie Crust recipe with graham cracker crumbs resulted in rich graham flavor and sufficient sturdiness. For intense berry flavor without too much liquid, we cooked a portion of the berries with sugar and lemon zest in a saucepan until syrupy. (A spatula dragged through the mixture should leave a trail when it's thick enough.) To further tighten the filling, we tossed the cooked berry mixture with the remaining fresh berries and tapioca, which tasters appreciated for its ability to thicken without calling attention to itself. The raw pie dough formed the base of the streusel topping-simply fortifying the dough with oats for texture and brown sugar for sweetness before sprinkling the streusel on top made it an ideal component of our pie.

Provided by @MakeItYours

Number Of Ingredients 14

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Ingredients

Crust and Streusel
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
9 graham crackers, broken into rough pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and softened
2 ounces cream cheese, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
Filling
6 cups mixed fresh berries (see note)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
3 tablespoons Minute Tapioca

Steps:

For the crust and streusel: Grease 9-inch pie plate. Process flour, graham crackers, and salt in food processor until finely ground. Add butter, cream cheese, and vanilla and pulse until dough forms. Remove 2 cups dough from food processor (leaving remaining dough in bowl of food processor) and turn out onto lightly floured surface. Flatten dough into 6-inch disk and transfer to prepared pie plate. Press dough evenly into pie plate and flute edges. Cover dough with plastic and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours.
Add oats and brown sugar to food processor with remaining dough and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Transfer to bowl and use fingers to pinch topping into peanut-sized clumps; cover and refrigerate streusel.
For the filling: Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook 2 cups berries in saucepan over medium-high heat until juicy, about 3 minutes. Stir in sugar and lemon zest and simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes, then gently toss cooked berry mixture, remaining berries, and tapioca in large bowl until combined.
Transfer berry mixture to chilled crust. Scatter oat mixture evenly over pie. Bake pie on rimmed baking sheet until fruit is bubbling around edges and streusel is browned and crisp, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool on rack 30 minutes, then refrigerate until set, at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours. Serve.
Graham Crackers
The crust of our Mixed Berry Streusel Pie is a hybrid of a press-in-the-pan crust and a graham cracker crumb crust. It bakes up tender and flaky, with an earthy-sweet graham flavor. But what kind of cracker makes the best crust? After experimenting with the three leading brands, we discovered subtle but distinct differences among them and found that these differences carried over into the crusts made with each kind of cracker. Our favorite was Nabisco Original Graham Crackers: Tasters liked their hardy molasses flavor. The two other brands tested (Nabisco Honey Maid and Keebler Graham Crackers) use honey and yielded crusts that were slightly too sweet.
NABISCO ORIGINAL
The deep flavor of molasses makes these graham crackers the test kitchen's favorite.
The crust of our Mixed Berry Streusel Pie is a hybrid of a press-in-the-pan crust and a graham cracker crumb crust. It bakes up tender and flaky, with an earthy-sweet graham flavor. But what kind of cracker makes the best crust? After experimenting with the three leading brands, we discovered subtle but distinct differences among them and found that these differences carried over into the crusts made with each kind of cracker. Our favorite was Nabisco Original Graham Crackers: Tasters liked their hardy molasses flavor. The two other brands tested (Nabisco Honey Maid and Keebler Graham Crackers) use honey and yielded crusts that were slightly too sweet.
NABISCO ORIGINAL
The deep flavor of molasses makes these graham crackers the test kitchen's favorite.