The Best Restaurant in Ahmedabad, Café Upper Crust, brings you heavenly titbits to dig into! Frankly, nothing we feel can beat the fantabulous pies from the western shores!
Today, we’re going to do something different. Of course, over the past few weeks, you have been following us and making wonderful dishes, delicacies, sweets, etc. However, those yet involved traditional cooking methods, and simple techniques. Umm, it wasn’t much of a difficult method in those recipes as it was about learning the basics of cooking.
Nevertheless, today, we’re going to go a step ahead and make a strawberry pie that uses a two-crusts pie dough and really fresh strawberries!
Pies were most often than not savored at parties and celebrations, with most of them buying it from stores! If you ever watched Tom & Jerry cartoons where just as Tom’s owner took out her freshly baked pie from the oven, and put it on her kitchen’s window sill, drawing out all the nasty alley cats & Jerry from his hiding dungeon! We’re precisely going to do just that! Make a pie, which would simply draw your beloved, and ahem the neighbors, the moment you take out this Strawberry pie from your oven!
A Note before we begin.
Try using fresh strawberries for making this pie. If you cannot get them at the moment, don’t worry — frozen strawberries are almost good enough! The concern is —frozen strawberries will release moisture while fresh strawberries will not do so. Thus, it might become imperative for you to use additional Corn Starch in the pie mixture!
Strawberry Pie with Single Crust as well as Two Crusts
Ingredients
- 5 cups fresh strawberries, rinsed, hulled, sliced in half/quartered
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar, or more depending on the sweetness of your strawberries
- 3 Tablespoons ‘Corn Starch’
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- two-crust pie dough, recipe follows
- Milk, as needed
- Turbinado sugar, as needed
Instructions For Single Crust Pie
- Let’s begin with preparing the pie crusts. Split the dough into 2 equal segments. Next, get the pie tin/plate, and rolling pin ready. In your fridge, keep aside one segment of the dough, and go ahead to roll the other segment.
- On a floured surface (lightly dusted with almost a pinch of flour), Roll one pie dough at a time! On the other hand, you can use a smart trick! Roll dough between two sheets of parchment paper…
- Roll dough to almost 10-inches in diameter, and about 1/4-inch thick.
- [You should check if you have rolled the dough larger than the size of your pie tin by placing the pie tin/plate upside over the rolled dough.]
- Now, carefully, and slowly fold the dough in half. Swiftly but Gently, lift the dough and place it into the pie plate. Firmly press the dough into the bottom and sides of the pie tin/plate.
- Trim off the extra dough, if hanging from the out much from the tin sides, by leaving about a 1/2-inch of overhang all around the tin wall.
- Cover the tin and the bottom dough layer with plastic wrap, and place them in the fridge to chill.
- Carry on with rolling out the other segment of the dough.
- Next, combine the sliced strawberries with sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a large bowl.
- Followed by pouring these strawberries into the chilled pie crust, which we had earlier placed into the fridge.
- Now, simply cover strawberries with another segment which you had rolled, as the ‘Upper Crust’.
- Trim off any extra dough hanging from the top layer crust.
- You can decorate the edges of the pie with a fork or crimp with your fingers if you want to!
- While you set the oven to preheat to 450 degrees F, you can chill the entire pie tin in the fridge.
- As the oven reaches the set temperature mentioned above, take the chilled pie out from the fridge and place it on a baking sheet.
- Lightly brush the top of the pie with whole milk, adding turbinado sugar as sprinkles.
- Do not forget to cut slits/vents on the top crust using a very thin knife!
- [The steam must necessarily escape, else the top crust would explode & tear during baking. Slits prevent such exploding.]
- Set the oven to bake the pie at 450 degrees F for 10 minutes.
- Next, reduce heat to 350 degrees F, and bake for 15 minutes.
- Rotate the pie, and continue Baking for 20-30 minutes more, until you can see the top layer of the Pie is Golden Brown.
Finally, once the pie is done, hold on to your horses. Let it cool off before digging in! Savor Your Treat!
Ingredients For the Two Crust Pie Dough:
- 2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, very cold
- 5 Tablespoons ice cold water
- 2 large egg yolks, col
How to Go About this:
- Mix and beat flour, salt, and sugar together using a food processor.
- Next, add cold butter one tablespoon at a time while your food processor is running, from the thin nozzle on the top of the lid. [Take Care while doing so to no hurt yourself.]
- As you see the mixture has turned crumbly, almost like coarse sand in texture, you can stop the food processor machine
- Now, you add water and egg yolks and Use the Pulse function to give a short burst of whisks to the dough for a couple of seconds, until dough comes together again.
- Take out the dough from the machine, and finish manually kneading on a lightly floured surface.
- You must divide the dough into two equal segments.
- After Flattening into disks, wrap these 2 segments in plastic wrap, and put them in the refrigerator to chill for 20 minutes, or you can even set in the Deep Freeze for 10 minutes if you’re short on time!
- That‘s It! Your dough is ready. Carry on making the pie, following the method described above, using the same ingredients for the inside filling & garnishing!
- Do send us a Slice of your Pie, once it’s ready! Bon Appetite!
TREASURE TIP!
WHAT’S MOST DIFFICULT WHILE MAKING A PIE?
It’s while you are waiting for the pie to cool before slicing — That’s the most difficult part! You must wait for the pie to cool down, before poking a knife into it. If you want a big mess, go ahead and try to cut a warm pie.
A real big hot mess. Not only would you spoil its look and texture, making it really ugly to serve, but also in all probability, you will burn your (and your guests’) tongue!
Have patience and let the pie cool. Time is everything!
Patience is the key to perfection! And of course, bliss!
Disclaimer: Our Recipes are aimed to provide a healthy guide to making oven or dessert items within the comfort & ease of your home kitchens. Such cooking results may differ from those results of professional chefs’ practices & recipes. These recipes may or may not be available at our eatery outlets, at the time of posting these blogs.
