Ingredients:
• 1 (9 inch) pie crust, baked (recipe below)
• 1 quart fresh strawberries, halved
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 cup water
• whipped cream (recipe below)
Directions:
• Arrange half of strawberries in baked pastry shell.
• Mash remaining berries and combine with sugar in a medium saucepan.
• Place saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
• In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and water.
• Gradually stir cornstarch mixture into boiling strawberry mixture.
• Reduce heat and simmer mixture until thickened, about 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
• Pour mixture over berries in pastry shell.
• Chill for several hours before serving.
• Serve each slice of pie with a dollop of whipped cream.
Pie Crust
Ingredients:
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 3 tablespoons granulated white sugar
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening, cold
• 12 tablespoons butter, (1 1/2 sticks) cold and cubed
• 1⁄2 cup ice water
What you do:
• In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt and sugar.
• Add the shortening and break it up with your hands as you start to coat it all up with the flour.
• Add the cold butter cubes and work it into the flour with your hands or a pastry cutter. Work it quickly, so the butter doesn’t get too soft, until the mixture is crumbly, like very coarse cornmeal.
• Add the ice water, a little at a time, until the mixture comes together forming a dough.
• Bring the dough together into a ball. When it comes together stop working it otherwise the dough will get over-worked and tough.
• Divide the dough in half and flatten it slightly to form a disk shape.
• Wrap each disk in plastic and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
• On a floured surface roll each disk out into a 10 to 11-inch circle to make a 9-inch pie.
Yield: 2 (9-inch) pie crusts
If your recipe calls for a pre-baked crust:
• Freeze the crust for at least a half hour, until chilled.( This is an important step in pre-baking. Otherwise the crust will slip down the sides.)
• Preheat your oven to 350°F.
• Line the pie crust with parchment paper, wax paper, or aluminum foil.
• Fill at least two-thirds full with pie weights – dry beans, rice, or stainless-steel pie weights.
• Bake with weights for 20 minutes.
• Remove from oven, cool a few minutes and carefully remove pie weights.
• Poke small holes in the bottom of the pie crust with a fork and return to oven (without the weights) and cook for an additional 10 minutes, until the crust is golden.
• Cool completely before filling.
• You may need to tent the edges of the pie with aluminum foil when you bake your pie, to keep the edges from getting too dried out and burnt.
Whipped Cream
Ingredients:
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar
What you do:
• In a large bowl, whip cream until stiff peaks are just about to form.
• Beat in vanilla and sugar until peaks form.
• Make sure not to over-beat, cream will then become lumpy and butter-like.
