Frozen Strawberry & Rhubarb Pie

Do you know how hard it is to find a glass 9 inch pie plate in London?

Impossible, apparently. I first began my pie journey trying to find said pie plate (or is it pie dish? I'm still learning the pie lingo) when I was reminiscing to my husband about the first 4th of July I remembered when I moved to America as a kid. There was a big lawn with lots of people, and a long white table which was covered in pies. There was going to be a pie contest, but in my head I thought it was a pie eating contest. Six year old me could most definitely win that, Bruce Bogtrotter style. After telling Will about this I just had to make my own, it had been so long since I had had a proper pie. 

Now, when you talk about pies in the UK you're usually talking about pork pies, mince pies, kidney pies, steak and ale pies.. But here I'm talking about an American eagle swooping in and holding an all butter pie in its talons while Bruce Springsteen sings in the background. So began my mission of finding all the ingredients and supplies I needed for this perfect pie.

Pie prep!

The thing holding the pie together, metaphorically and literally, is the pie dough. I started researching different recipes for pie doughs, some with apple cider vinegar, others with sour cream, but all with very cold ingredients. When I thought about the last pie I had (pumpkin) all I remember was a soggy bottom that would make Mary Berry recoil in horror. I zeroed in on Erin Jeanne McDowell, I mean the woman is coming out with a book only on pies, and followed her method for a super flaky pie dough. Compared to other methods, she doesn't grate or chop up her butter into small pieces, instead keeps the butter pieces quite large in order to have more of a lamination process.

Next, she recommends using a glass pie plate - that way during the baking process you can check the bottom of the dish to make sure it is cooking all the way through - which is what went wrong when I had made my last pie, many moons ago. I don't want to talk about how much I had to pay in delivery for the glass pie plate I finally found, but it has made a huge difference (change this to something else, bleh). 

My local fruit and vegetable box had strawberry and rhubarb available, so I went with that to get a nice mix of tart and sweet. I wasn't sure how long it would take for my precious pie plate to arrive, so I made the mixture as detailed below, then poured it all into a freezer bag. Once I had made the pie dough, I took the frozen fruit mix out and placed it into the prepared pie dish, before chilling it in the fridge for another 10 minutes. Personally I think fresh fruit would be better, but you have to work with what you got!

Pie tips to keep in mind:

• Keep all of your ingredients cold
• Take your time, I did the first part of the dough the night before so it could chill overnight 
• Any time you feel like the butter is starting to get too warm or sticky, pop it back into the fridge to firm up 
• If all else fails, pie crust cutters make everything better

Recipe