Blueberry, Lavender, & Cream Cheese Crumble Pie
An excellent recipe from Fat & Flour by baking diva Nicole Rucker, baked on a trip home to North Carolina.
Going home can be tough for those of us with a complicated family history. Mine has been changed permanently by addiction, death, and the grief that followed. We still come together and try to enjoy time with each other when we can, but there’s no denying that things have changed after losing 3 family members in the last 4 years: my mother, uncle, and Grandmother Daisy.
My mother Melissa and I spent a good chunk of my young life living with my Grandma Debbie. Melissa always struggled with substance abuse, which ultimately took her life at 49 years old. This was obviously traumatic, and I’ll most likely delve more into it in later posts. I know stories like these aren’t related to baking, but they are related to the baker (me, of course) and they all explain the path of my life and how I was led to kitchens, my chosen family, and moving away from home.
Growing up in the South, food was always quick, convenient, and as cheap as possible. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, though. I love my Grandma Debbie’s cubed steak and fried chicken, and my (great) Grandma Daisy made really good grilled cheeses, banana pudding, and a coconut cake that I plan on recreating sometime. As a person who was pretty much abandoned by their father, I cherish the women in my family and I think they’re stronger than any of the men have been. The women stuck around, raised their children and their children’s children, and made tons of sacrifices to make sure what needed to be done got done. I love my grandmas and aunts. My mama, too, even though we went through a lot of tough times. May she rest in peace.
Many years before me, my great Grandfather Needham (Daisy’s husband) propagated some blueberry branches and planted them in the backyard. 50+ years later, the blueberry bushes still fruit each summer in late July and August. This is one of my favorite parts of going home in the summer: harvesting and baking with the blueberries that have brought joy to my family for decades. I usually bake them into a pie, and this year I wanted to do a recipe from my good friend and chosen family member Nicole Rucker’s latest book, Fat & Flour: The Art of a Simple Bake.
Nicole has always felt like an older sister to me. We’ve cried laughing together, and also cried over other painful things that weren’t funny together. She’s been there for me for hard times and she was one of the first industry friends I made in Los Angeles when I moved here. I love her bakery and her tasteful, straightforward approach to baking. I’ve spent a small chunk of time working in her kitchen, sheeting pie dough, baking fruit pies, and seeing the world through her lens. They say don’t work with your friends, but we’ve endured and I would work with her again. Nicole understands my family history and has always been there for me in ways I’ll never be able to repay her for—not that she’d ask.
The recipe I’m sharing today is her Blueberry with Lavender and Cream Cheese Crumble Pie. The last time I was in Wilmington, I baked a double-crusted blueberry pie, so this time, I wanted to switch it up a bit. This recipe was the perfect use for the fresh blueberries I picked. I also used her pie dough recipe, which I’m quite familiar with after making and sheeting hundreds of pie rounds in her kitchen at Grand Central Market. You’ll have to grab a copy of the book for that recipe, though.
This pie uses a single crust, a cooked blueberry filling, and cream cheese, which goes in the bottom of the pie and also into the crumble. Confession time: I couldn’t get my hands on culinary lavender (or any lavender at all, tbh) for the recipe, so I had to omit it. Now that I’m back in LA, I’ve got my own lavender growing and will absolutely throw that in next time I make it. Forgive me, Nicole, and thank you for sharing the recipe!
Blueberry with Lavender & Cream Cheese Crumble Pie
Recipe from Fat and Flour: The Art of a Simple Bake by Nicole Rucker
Makes one 9-inch pie
For the filling:
3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
2 tsp (2g) dried culinary lavender
1 tsp (3g) kosher salt
3 tbsp (30g) cornstarch
1 3/4 lbs (794g) fresh blueberries
1 tbsp (14g) lemon juice
For the cream cheese crumble:
1 1/2 cups (187g) all purpose flour
1/4 cup (53g) packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
1/2 tsp (1.5g) kosher salt
1/2 cup (114g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 tbsp (57g) cream cheese, cold
To assemble the pie:
1 disk prepared pie dough
4 tbsp (57g) cream cheese, softened
Make the filling: Add the sugar and lavender to a large mixing bowl and use your fingers to rub the buds into the sugar and break them up. Add the salt, cornstarch, and half of the blueberries, and toss so all the fruit is coated. Place the remaining blueberries into the freezer. Let the coated fruit macerate for 1/2 hour. Transfer it and all its juices to a medium saucepan, and cook over medium heat until the juices boil and thicken. Remove the cooked filling from the heat, and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Add the frozen blueberries and lemon juice, and stir.
Make the crumble topping: Whisk the flour, sugars, and salt together in a medium mixing bowl. Add the melted butter and cream cheese, and mix it with a fork until it resembles a buttery crumble. Some small chunks of cream cheese are OK.
Preheat your oven to 375ºF (190ºC). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.Assemble the pie: Roll your pie dough into a 12-inch circle. Transfer the rolled dough to a 9-inch pie plate, and trim the edge to allow 1 inch of dough to hang over the edge. Roll or fold the hanging edge of dough over itself, using your thumb and forefinger to crimp the edge. Put the crimped crust into the freezer for 20 minutes.
Once the crust has chilled, smear the cream cheese onto the bottom of the pie crust, pour the filling over it, and add all the juices that may have collected in the bottom of the bowl. Scatter the crumble over the top.
Chill the whole pie in the freezer for 10 minutes, transfer it to the prepared baking sheet, then place the pie into your preheated oven, on the center rack, and bake until the crust is a deep golden brown and the juices from the pie are boiling. This should take 1 full hour, and possibly longer. Cool the pie for 1 hour before eating, to allow the juices to settle and continue thickening. Store any leftovers in the fridge, and warm slices of the cold pie at 375ºF (190ºC) for 15 minutes before eating, for best results.
Beautiful pie 🥧 Your story reminds me how food and memories can be intertwined together in complicated ways. Would love to hear if you recreate your Grandma’s coconut cake.
Nothing beats homemade pie!