A strawberry cream pie is the kind of thing you’d expect to find spinning slowly in a glass display on the counter of a roadside diner somewhere off Route 66, or smiling back at you from a sun-faded 1970s magazine advert trying to convince suburban America that a packet of strawberry Jell-O was the key to domestic bliss. It’s shamelessly nostalgic. It’s almost impossible not to like. Just look at it. But for me, this pie is something else entirely. It’s a gateway pie.
Once you start pulling on this thread, you discover an entire continent’s worth of pies, some humble, some strange, some brilliant, that rarely make it beyond the state lines they were conceived in. Cream pies are only one corner of that world. Some are baked, some are chilled, some are finished with clouds of whipped cream, others left plain. Many trace their roots back to what were known as desperation pies: born from empty cupboards, hard seasons and the stubborn belief that, whatever else was missing, there still had to be pie.
There’s the Pennsylvania Dutch Shoofly Pie, dark with molasses. Indiana’s Sugar Cream Pie, better known as Hoosier Pie, whose only hard rule is that sugar shows up. Chess Pie, with roots that reach back to England before finding a home in the American South. The Juneteenth staple Strawberry Pie (not the same as Strawberry Cream Pie, almost reversed, bright and celebratory). And Vinegar Pie from Appalachia, where lemons were a luxury but tartness was necessary against the sweetness of the custard. None of these exist because ingredients were plentiful. They exist because people made something memorable out of almost nothing. That’s the beauty in this. It’s resourcefulness masquerading as indulgence.
The strawberry cream pie here follows the same philosophy and can be easily tweaked to many other variations. Swap sliced strawberries for bananas folded into crème pâtissière and you’ve got Banana Cream Pie. Keep the crème pâtissière, fold toasted coconut through the whipped cream and finish with coconut flakes for Coconut Cream Pie. Or fill the shell with a simple chocolate mousse, crown it with softly whipped cream and call it Chocolate Cream Pie. Different pies, same idea: make something generous and deeply comforting from whatever you’ve got.
Ingredients
For the pastry
For the filling
For the topping
Preparation
For the pastry
Step 1
The key to the perfect pastry is keeping everything as cold as possible (without freezing) so we will hold of preheating the oven until this pastry is made, wrapped and in the fridge to rest.
Step 2
You can put the weighed flour, the diced butter, the water and even the bowl of the food processor in the freezer ahead of time if you have space.
Step 3
Add the cold flour, salt and butter to the bowl of the food processor and pulse until the butter and flour mixture resembles a crumbly sand texture.
Step 4
Then gradually stream the cold water in as the blades are spinning to bring it together a little more. Empty the pastry mixture onto a clean surface and quickly squish it together to form a ball or puck of dough. Transfer this covered or wrapped to the fridge and let it rest for at least an hour.
Step 5
Grease the inside of the cake/pie tin.
Step 6
Roll out the pastry to 2mm thickness and use it to line the cake tin, pressing firmly into the corners and base and allowing 1 to 2 cm of pastry to overhang the rim.
Step 7
Place the lined cake tin back in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Step 8
Preheat the oven to 180c.
Step 9
Prick the base of the pastry with a fork a few times and lay a crumpled sheet of baking parchment across to line the pastry shell. Fill this with baking beans for the initial bake.
Step 10
Place in the centre of the oven and bake for 12 minutes.
Step 11
Remove from the oven, remove parchment and baking beans and place back in the oven for 5 mins.
Step 12
Allow the shell to cool fully in its case on a wire rack.
For the filling
Step 13
While the pastry is cooling you can make the filling.
Step 14
Remove the green leaves and stalks from the strawberries.
Step 15
Add 400g of the strawberries to the food processor and blend until smooth.
Step 16
Add the blended strawberries, the caster sugar and the lemon juice and vinegar to the sauce pan and bring up to a gentle simmer.
Step 17
Mix the cornflour and water into a slurry and then add it into the strawberry mixture. Bring this to a low boil and cook out while stirring until it is the consistency of thick jam.
Step 18
Stir in the rest of the whole strawberries and allow to cool slightly.
Step 19
Tip this mixture into the pastry pie case and use the back of a spoon to spread it out evenly, it should fill the shell to the top.
Step 20
Allow this to cool fully before transferring to the fridge for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.
For the topping
Step 21
Add the cream, mascarpone and icing sugar to a mixing bowl and whisk to smooth, stiff peaks.
Step 22
Using a large spoon place large dollops of the cream mixture across the top of the pie and then using the back of a spoon spread the mixture evenly across the pie, it should create a 2-3cm thick top.
Step 23
You can slice and serve right away but it will be even better after an hour in the fridge.
