Blackberry Toasted Coconut Pie

I work with a guy, whom I often refer to as Willy Wonka, who makes the most amazing-tasting candies, and they are like nothing you have ever tried before. One day he brought me a beautiful sugar-coated, delicately gelled treasure to taste. It was the size of a double-thick Sacagawea dollar coin and was cream colored on the top and deep purple on the bottom. He said he was working on a line of candies based on pie. This gorgeous thing could be eaten whole, or peeled apart to taste each flavor separately. It was heavenly! He called the flavor blackberry toasted coconut. I felt the gauntlet had been thrown, so I came home that night and made a pie version. Lucky for me, I had picked too many triple crown blackberries last summer for my birthday, so my freezer had them just sitting there waiting!

I used a Pillsbury pie crust, which I had in the refrigerator already. (If you want to make one from scratch, I recommend the one from this blog, January 2010.) Arrange in a 9-inch pie dish and pinch the edges. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the filling:
6 cups fresh blackberries (thaw first, if frozen)
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup minute tapioca
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the topping:
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut
two shakes salt
5 Tablespoons butter

Stir together all the ingredients for the filling. Pour into the prepared pie shell, and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the topping. Put everything, in order, in a food processor and pulse several dozen times until it is well mixed. You could probably do this in a bowl with a hand mixer too. Then dump the whole thing in a bowl and squeeze it repeatedly with your (washed) hands, to make big lumps. Put the bowl in the refrigerator.

When 30 minutes is up, pour all the crumbs onto the pie. Make sure it reaches all the way to the edges. Turn down the oven temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Continue cooking the pie for another 30 minutes.

Remove the pie from the oven and turn off the power or gas. Let the pie cool for an hour before you slice it. If you can find Breyer's Natural Vanilla, your pie will love you for it. Otherwise, pie is forgiving. This pie and that candy still dream of each other on odd Tuesday nights.