Strawberry Cream Pie

In honor of Canada Day, and in order to make something new with this week's strawberries, I decided to do a riff on a strawberry tart that I saw in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. Tart shell; pastry cream, and fresh strawberries on top. My version? Sweet tart dough, with a layer of chocolate berry preserves from the Hamilton Farmer's market, pastry cream, and fresh strawberries.

Now, this story really begins last weekend, when we were going to Craig's house for dinner - the same day I bought a gorgeous quart of organic strawberries from Quinte Organic at the Evergreen Brickworks farmer's market. Excited (and without rhubarb to reprise my strawberry-rhubarb pie), I decided to make a tart. I got out Dorie Greenspan's book, made some tart dough, and then proceeded to follow her recipe for pastry cream.

I don't know if it was the fact that P's aunt called when I was in the middle of it, requiring me to multi-task, or that the directions weren't totally clear - but the pastry cream did not gel. Too late to run out and get more milk and eggs, I brought the strawberries to Craig's. A star in their own right, but I was disappointed in my pastry failure.

So, being that today is a holiday - leaving the entire day for baking concentration - I popped the still-frozen tart dough into the oven to bake while making a different recipe for pastry cream, from The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, by Bo Friberg. This recipe calls for 2 eggs, rather than 6 egg yolks (as my previous attempt had), and manages to make only one pot dirty. I carefully followed his directions, and - voila! - delicious, thick pastry cream.

The previously-made tart crust? Not so good. It cracked in a thousand places, rendering it beyond repair. I then went to a different baking cookbook, Modern Baker, by Nick Malgieri, and tried out his Sweet Tart Dough recipe. It came out perfectly - a bit sandy in texture, somewhat cookie-like, and sweet (but not too sweet). The perfect support for a schmear of chocolate berry preserves, then the pastry cream, and then sliced strawberries on top.

This pie - and I did it in a pie shell so there would be enough room for all of the pastry cream - was delicious. The pastry cream was light and creamy, and not too sweet; the strawberries were as perfect as strawberries can be, and the jam added a hint of fruity-chocolaty flavor to each bite. This is a pie worthy of breakfast tomorrow, which is good - there's still a lot left! Too bad it's too difficult to transport on the bus into work for my co-workers to share...

P.S. I love Dorie Greenspan, and all of her recipes - I'm guessing my failure with her recipe was due to my inexperience with both recipes, and my inattention while making them. Everything else I've made from her cookbook has been fantastic, and even looks just like the pictures - so please don't base any decisions on using her cookbooks on this one not-so-great experience.

Rhubarb, strawberry, & apple pie follow-up

We're back from Ottawa - and here's a photo of the last two pieces of pie before they were eaten. The pie was fantastic - amazing for dessert, even better for breakfast the next day. Although I seem to rarely bake the same thing twice - there are so many great recipes to try - this one will be made again if strawberries and rhubarb show up together again in the weekly box.

One challenge this week: P is away from Tuesday until Saturday. That leaves me to eat all of the veggies, and we still have some left from last week because we were away. I may turn into a head of lettuce...

Rhubarb, strawberry, and apple pie

From the title of this post, you already know that changes had to be made to the original plan of a strawberry-rhubarb marriage - a third pie-appropriate filling needed to be added. Turns out the half-share I have in the CSA didn't give me quite enough fruit for the pie - a little under 2 cups of strawberries, and 3 or so cups of rhubarb, when all was washed and cut up. In the midst of baking the pie, what was I to do?

Rather than scrap the idea entirely (I had managed to make a half-decent looking bottom pie crust, so had beaten my expected nemesis), I considered my options. Obviously, more had to go in the pie, or the proportions of sugar and spices would be off, and the volume of the pie would be sad-looking. This left me with two options in the refrigerator: blueberries (yes, I realize they're far from local this time of year, but I couldn't resist them for my morning cereal) or a Granny Smith apple. Blueberries, no matter what their provenance, tasted wrong to me in my head. Apples, on the other hand, seemed to go well with the spices (cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg), and the texture of the fruits already in the mix.

I began with a base recipe from Anna Olson's cookbook Sugar: Simple Sweets and Decadent Desserts, added the apple, and also took the liberty of substituting arrowroot powder for the cornstarch. This is because Baking Illustrated (the baking cookbook put out by the same people who write Cook's Illustrated magazine and their assorted cookbooks) had mentioned that tasters enjoyed the thickening power of root-based thickeners over cornstarch, but tapioca interacted with the rhubarb to give the pie a gummy texture.

Now, the difficulty is that I cannot sample this pie until tomorrow night. I'm bringing it to our friends' home in Ottawa, and the hard thing about bringing pies anywhere (and cakes, too, for that matter), is that it seems impolite to have already eaten a piece. Until I taste it, the recipe and a picture of the finished product will have to satisfy your curiosity (and mine) about how it tastes.

Rhubarb, strawberry, & apple pie
adapted from Sugar: Simple Sweets and Decadent Desserts

Crust
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3 - 5 Tbsp cold water

Fruit filling
3 cups chopped fresh rhubarb
2 cups hulled and sliced strawberries
1 peeled and chopped Granny Smith apple
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp arrowroot powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
dash of salt

Crumble topping
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp freshly-ground nutmeg
dash of salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

For crust, mix flour with salt. Cut in butter and shortening with pastry cutter until mixture is a roughly even crumbly texture. Add lemon juice and water until dough comes together enough to shape into disc. Wrap disc in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees C. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to fit a 9-inch pie pan. Line pie pan with pastry, and trim and crimp edges. Chill while preparing fruit for filling.

For the fruit filling, toss the rhubarb, strawberries, and apple with sugar, arrowroot powder, spice, and salt to coat evenly. Fill pie shell with fruit.

For the crumble topping, mix flour, sugar, nutmeg and salt in small bowl. Mix in melted butter until crumbly (this is easiest with your hands), and spread over fruit. Bake pie on a foil-lined baking tray (to facilitate clean-up) in the 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. Turn the temperature down to 350 degrees for the 40 more minutes, or until the fruit is bubbling.