Strawberry Pie

The last few days have seen our strawberry plants come back to life & spew forth loads of fruit!

I was just going to puree them & freeze for smoothies but Hubby loves strawberry pie. So I thought I’d earn me some brownie points. A quick look on pinterest to find a recipe using ingredients I had in the pantry, and away I went.

I used a recipe from gourmade at home

This is the recipe as it appears on her blog:
Strawberry Pie

Crust:

1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup oil (I used vegetable oil)
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon sugar

Pie:

4 cups fresh strawberries
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cold water

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Combine all of the crust ingredients in a bowl and stir together until the flour is completely incorporated and the mixture is crumbly.
Dump into a 9-inch pie plate and press out evenly on the sides and bottom. Prick the crust all over with a fork (this allows the steam to escape while baking so that the crust doesn’t bubble in the pan).
Bake the piecrust in your preheated oven for 15-18 minutes. Remove the crust from the oven and let it cool completely.
Rinse all of the strawberries in a colander in the sink. Haul (the process of cutting off the stems) and cut them into large chunks.
Put half of the strawberries into a heavy-bottomed saucepan on the stove along with the starch, sugar and water. Stir together until the cornstarch and sugar start to dissolve into the water.
Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer for about 5-10 minutes, until the sauce turns clearer and thickens. Stir constantly
Put the rest of the sliced, un-cooked strawberries into the bottom of the cooled piecrust. Pour the cooked strawberry mixture evenly over the strawberries in the piecrust, and chill until the filling is firm (about an hour). Slice the cooled pie into large wedges and serve with generous dollops of whipped cream.

Now, I didn’t quite have 4 cups of strawberries so I added a few frozen ones. I also worked under the assumption that cornstarch is the same as cornflour…I couldn’t be bothered googling it so I just went with that. The base was far to salty for us (and YES, I did only use 1 TEAspoon & not a TABLEspoon before anyone makes a comment. It is actually something I have been known to do in the past so I am extremely careful now!) I wouldn’t want it any sweeter though because of the topping but will definitely be using a pinch of salt over a teaspoon in future. My mixture also didn’t go lighter in colour…at all! So I just left it bright red, hoping for the best!