Summer Strawberry Pie

I love strawberries and so do my kids!  The summer is strawberry season and although I love the sweet and simple strawberry I really wanted to make a true summer dessert featuring the strawberry. We always drive by these amazing road side strawberry stands in the summer and treat ourselves to delicious,local strawberries. I bought 6 liters of strawberries! I know that's a lot but I knew we would need about 4 liters to bake 2 pies and the rest well between the kids and my husband the remaining 2 liters wouldn't last too long

To me pie is a real treat.  I don't often have time for making pies but this Friday I decide to set the afternoon aside to bake some strawberry pie with the kids. My hubby was out of town for business and was coming home later in the evening.  I thought this would be a special activity to distract the kids while they missed daddy but also a nice homemade treat from my husband!

We washed, hulled and cut the berries in half or quarters.  The ingredients for this pie are so simple - which is what a pie should be in my opinion!  I know many strawberry pies use JELLO but I wanted the true taste of summer. Don't get me know, my kids love JELLO but I really wanted to celebrate the strawberry in the summer dessert!

For one pie, you need:

- about 5 cups of strawberries (washed and halved or quartered) I actually went a little crazy with dicing so I have about 5 1/2 cups in each pie.
- 1/2 cup of sugar (if you want a sweeter pie add maybe another 1/4 cup)
- 3 Tablespoons of cornstarch (this is a thickening agent, no cornstarch? Use flour)
- 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
 - 5 tablespoons of milk
- turbinado sugar (as needed - or granulated sugar)

Add to the strawberries and mix. My son Jameson loves to bake with me and he was a great help stirring the berry filling while I cleaned up the kitchen.

Now, I am not a pro at pie crusts - so I cheated! Which in the end turned out to be a good idea since hubby called and he was arriving about 2 hours early and I had to pack up all 4 kids to pick him up at the airport. I used frozen pie crust. A box with two shells (one for the top and one for the bottom). I let them thaw out a bit so that the one shell could slip out of the pie pant easily and be placed on top.   So once the berries were mixed I loaded up the bottom pie crust and evened them out as best I could.  I then placed the top pie crust on top, pinched the edges and then did a milk wash on top and sprinkled some sugar.  I recently discovered turbinado sugar, which is perfect for sprinkling on top of pies and turnovers.

Don't forget to use a knife to cut four slits/vent holes in the top crust.  This is necessary to let the steam escape and prevent the top crust from exploding.

Set your oven for 450 degrees, you will bake your pie at that temperature for about 10 minutes.  Then turn the temperature down to 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes.  If your oven runs hot, check on the pie around 20 minutes

The end result a perfectly golden and delicious strawberry pie.  You can tell from my photo that I didn't pinch one seam tightly enough and the filling spilled out a bit.  I always bake pies on a cookie sheet to keep from spilling directly in my oven and having to clean the oven.

Overall this pie was a hit.  It is what summer should taste like - pure strawberries and just enough sweet.  Perfect served warm with cool whipped cream or cold vanilla ice cream on the side.

The perfect summer dessert!