A Versatile Streusel Topping

My latest discovery for fruit pies and muffins

I’ve had my 874-page Fannie Farmer Cookbook for 20 years and the other day I discovered deep in it a new way to top a single-crust cherry pie. I love streusel on coffee cake, but never thought of using it on a fruit pie.

My 8” cherry pie in a fluted pottery pie plate

With this topping you can add less sugar to the filling, and if you’re serving slices that have cooled, heat them so that it stays crumbly.

Recipe is from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 13th edition; you can add oats or chopped nuts

If you have English ancestors as I do, you’ll be interested to know that cherry pie is thought to have been first served to Elizabeth I in the 1500’s. Later the recipe was brought to America along with English cherry trees.

As I recall, our small fluted pie plate came from Mud Dabbers Pottery gallery and working studio just south of Brevard on Hwy. 276. When you’re there, be sure to visit the outdoor shed with its Seconds Shelf. It’s a spirit-lifting shop!

The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 13th ed., by Marion Cunningham, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1990

Photo of pie on a hand-loomed place mat is by Deda Edney

Cherry pie was served to Elizabeth I

Mud Dabbers Pottery, Brevard NC