Summer Strawberry Crumb Pie

Right now is perfect strawberry season right here in North Carolina, and in many other places as well. I've been looking for a perfect strawberry pie recipe (I'm a snob and won't accept gelatin based strawberry pie recipes since I've only ever had it sans gelatin), and after scouring cookbooks and the web, I found this recipe from allrecipes.com that seems to be it. I made it the other night and, needless to say, it was gone by this morning!

Summer Strawberry Crumb Pie
Ingredients

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch single crust pie
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg
• 4 cups fresh strawberries, hulled
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Place a drip pan on lowest shelf to catch pie juices.
2. To Make Topping: In a medium bowl, mix until fluffy the 3/4 cup sugar, 3/4 cup flour, butter, and nutmeg.
3. Place cleaned strawberries in a deep bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour, and cornstarch. Gently coat berries with this mixture; be careful not to crush berries.
4. Pour berries into prepared pie crust mounding them in the middle; mounding is necessary as the berries will sink as they bake. Cover berries with crumb topping and top crumbs with about 15 pea-sized blobs of butter. Wrap edges of pie crust with foil to prevent burning.
5. Bake pie in preheated oven for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) and bake for an additional 40 minutes. When there are 10 minutes left of baking, sprinkle a little extra sugar over crumb topping and then finish baking.