I made that!

I am stubborn. While my chocolate strawberry pie soup was certainly delicious, I want a pie. A pretty pie that slices and everything. It can be gooey and messy, I just want a piece of it to be lifted out of its comfy circular mother pie and onto a plate. For me. And my friends. Is that asking so much? So I’m trying again. Retaliation for Sunday’s failures. But I’m changing it up a bit. No more chocolate pudding, instead a nice pink strawberry pastry cream. I’m not too tough to go pink. Pink pie. There, I said it. I like pink pie.

It pretty much started the same as the other pie. First up, I needed to make my crust. I tend to make a lot of pie dough each time, and then portion it into chunks that I keep in the freezer. This makes it much harder to make up reasons for NOT making a pie on a whim. So today all I had to do was thaw my dough out and bake it.

Then I brushed it with melted chocolate, so that once cooled,  it would protect my crispy crust from the ooey gooey pinkness coming it’s way.

Then, the pinkness. My plan was to blend some pureed strawberries into a thick pastry cream, so I needed to get my berries ready. I made a compote by cooking chopped strawberries with some sugar for 7-8 minutes.

I let that cool down, then pureed it and strained out the seeds and chunky bits.

Then I made a pastry cream, a really thick one (I said I want a slice…).

And then I swirled in my pureed strawberries.

And poured it into my pie shell!

Man, that is pink. I popped the pie into the fridge to firm up a bit before tossing on some sliced strawberries.

And now I wait. Tonight I will devour you and all your pinkness!

RECIPE:

1 pie shell

2 oz good dark chocolate

2 ¼ cups milk

1 vanilla bean

7 egg yolks

¾ cup sugar

½ tsp salt

3 TBSP flour

3 TBSP cornstarch

12 oz strawberries, hulled and chopped

¼ cup sugar

2-3 pints strawberries, hulled and chopped

2-3 TBSP sugar

1 cup cream

1 TBSP cream

– Blind bake pie shell. Cool.

– Melt chocolate. Brush onto inside of baked pie shell.

– Put milk in pot. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into milk and bring to an almost boil. Let steep for 20 minutes.

– In another pot cook 12 oz strawberries with ¼ cup sugar for 6-8 minutes. Cool and puree.

– Mix sugar, salt, flour and cornstarch, Whisk in egg yolks.

– Temper milk into egg yolk mixture.

– Pour back into pot and cook, stirring constantly until thick and bubbly. Taste to make sure cornstarch is cooked.

– Blend strawberry puree into pastry cream.

– Pour into cooked pie shell.

– Let sit in fridge for an hour to set.

– Macerate 2-3 pints strawberries with 2-3 TBSP sugar. Pour over filled pie.

– Let sit in fridge for a few hours.

– When ready to serve, whip cream with 1 TBSP sugar and spread onto pie.