It was my first time making a pie. All apple crumb recipes that I had seen before were pretty much the same. I had never tasted a pie with this specific mix and was wondering how they would blend. The first bite is always the scary one because you don’t know whether you’ve done a decent job or not. For me, it was even more scary because I was going to take my first experiment to a potluck party!

Luckily, the sweetness of blueberries had blended perfectly with the juicy taste of sweet and tart apples and nutty flavor of almonds. All that’s missing in this picture is a scoop of ice-cream. My friend didn’t have any. I should have brought it with me. Oh well, next time.

For this recipe, I used gluten-free flour and a pre-made pie crust but you can get the regular ones from any grocery stores or make the crust from scratch. I still need to work on making a gluten-free crust from scratch.

• 1 box (7 oz) almond paste
• 1 unbaked 9″ pie shell, chilled
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup uncooked oats
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, divided
• 6 tablespoons cold butter, 1/4″ pieces
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 5 baking apples, peeled, sliced
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

1. Pre-heat oven to 375°F.
2. Shape Almond Paste into flat disk. Roll out to 9” disk, between 2 sheets of wax paper
3. Press disc into bottom and the sides of the pie crust and refrigerate
4. For topping mix flour, oats, brown sugar, almonds, and half of cinnamon. Cut butter into mixture and blend with a fork until crumbs are formed
5. For filling mix sugar with remaining cinnamon, toss with apples and blueberries, and pour into the crust
6. Spoon topping over apples. Bake 50-60 minutes or until golden brown
7. If the top is browning too quickly, loosely cover with foil