Summer produce is struggling to get to market as our cool spring and early summer continues, impeding the arrival of the full spectrum of Maine grown fruits and vegetables. Rhubarb made a strong showing about a month ago and strawberries, its vital partner, are here at last. The cool weather made the crop a little late by a week or two, but their flavor is intense.
I prefer to keep this duo separate. While I like strawberry-rhubarb pie I tend to make separate uses of these two, the latter is a vegetable technically but is used like a fruit in desserts. And strawberries should be left unadulterated. The next time you have the urge to make a strawberry rhubarb pie, increase the berries to use alone and omit the rhubarb; make a double crust pie (crumb topping is good too) in the usual way. For a thickener I like to use tapioca flour, a cleaner way to set fruits in a pie.
But for me it’s the fresh strawberry pie that is really the winner. There are two methods that I offer here. The most common form is to puree the strawberries to cook them in a sugar, cornstarch and water bath until thickened to pour over hulled uncooked berries arranged in a bake pie shell. The last time I did this I used a cookie crust instead of pastry dough. I sometimes prefer this because I don’t like chilling pies housing a pastry case; chilling ruins the flakiness of a dough. The cookie crust (use crushed shortbread, vanilla wafers or tea biscuits mixed with a bit of sugar and plenty of melted butter and baked until firm) survives much better. For a recipe for this pie see Fresh Strawberry Pie recipe link.
In the south sodas play a big part in the region’s pies and cakes. Classic desserts like 7-Up cake, Coca Cola cake and frostings and Cheerwine pie (a kind of cherry soda) is used in many custard pie fillings. Cheerwine is not available here but can be found on Amazon or other sources found in a typical Google search for the product. Southerners love the soda.
This pie owes its distinct flavor to the lemon-lime flavored Sprite soda. Note that sodas like Sprite, 7-Up and others are hard to find on supermarket shelves except in humongous bottles or six packs. If you’re like me you’re not soda drinkers so those half-gallon bottles go to waste. At Hannaford, however, you can find single 20-ounces bottles in the mini refrigerators in front of the checkout counters that hold various single-size sodas.
The following recipe has been adapted from a pie published in a recent Wall Street Journal article, American Pies. I’ve changed it in a few ways. The key ingredient, however, is Sprite in which the berries are cooked until soft.
Ingredients
- 9-inch prebaked pie dough
- Scant quart strawberries (2 cups and 1 cup sliced berries)
- 1 12-ounce bottle of Sprite
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 teaspoon almond extract (or use ½ teaspoon each vanilla and almond extracts)
- Pinch of Salt
- Heavy cream (preferably pasteurized or raw), chipped
- 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon almond or vanilla extracts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Prepare the dough and put into an 8- or 9-inch pie plate (preferably metal). Chill for 30 minutes and then freeze for at least 1 hour. This last step will prevent the dough from shrinking when baking blind. Arrange a large sheet of parchment paper over the pie, tucking in the edges to hold the pie in shape. Fill the case to the brim with pie weights or beans. Put on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the parchment paper carefully and put the partially baked shell back into the oven to bake until moderately browned, about 10 to 12 minutes. Cool the case before filling.
- Meanwhile prepare the berries by hulling them and slicing each berry into 3 to 4 slices enough to fill a 2 cup glass measure to the brim. Fill another cup measure brimming with sliced berries. Put these in the cooled pastry case. Use any leftover berries from a quart to decorate the pie, if you wish.
- Put the 2 cups berries into a medium saucepan. Add 12 ounces sprite and bring to the boil over moderately high heat until berries soften, about 5 minutes. Mash with a potato masher.
- Meanwhile whisk together the sugar and cornstarch until thoroughly blended. Add this to the hot berry mixture, whisking in until thoroughly blended and boil for another 5 minutes, stirring frequently with a whisk, until mixture is nicely thickened.
- Add two tablespoons butter and the extract and salt and cook until thickened again, about 5 minutes. Let the mixture cool for a few minutes then pour over the berries. Let cool to room temperature. Chill the pie for about 1 hour.
- Before serving let the chilled pie stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes to temper the baked pastry case. Then serve with dollops of whipped cream and any extra whole berries for decoration.
Notes
This was a typical pie found in drive-ins in the South in the 1950. Often, it was called Diner Strawberry Pie