This is a summertime staple around here, and has been for years. A coworker gave me this recipe back in the 1990s, I believe. A decade or so later, I passed the recipe on to a young, emerging cook, and she took first place in her company’s Pi Day Pie Contest—out of thirteen pies! I’m pretty sure you’ll have a similar success, however you measure it, when you make this for the first time 🙂

I added a chocolate layer over the crust, not following the original recipe, to prevent the filling from soaking into the crumbs and making them soggy. The downside to that is, though the chocolate is a delicious addition, it does make it difficult to cut the pie. To minimise this, just lightly coat the crust with chocolate. If possible, use melted bar chocolate for this, rather than melted chocolate chips. You can also opt out of the chocolate option and take your chance on the crust; after all, this pie is best served shortly after it’s made. Leftovers might be a bit of a problem, but in all actuality, there probably won’t be too many leftovers!

If you have any leftover melted chocolate, dip a few of your prettiest strawberries in it; chocolate-covered strawberries make a lovely decoration on top of this pie—see my post on Chocolate-Covered Strawberries for more directions and for a suggestion on how to melt your chopped chocolate bar.

No matter the chocolate, the pluses to this pie are many. 1. It’s delicious and a crowd favorite. 2. It’s all natural—no nasty preservatives, chemicals or colorings. 3. It’s a fresh pie, not one designed to be mass-produced, packaged, stored, transported, and displayed. 4. The filling is cooked on the stovetop; no need to turn on the oven. Truth in posting—the pie pictured above was made in a premade graham cracker crust and decorated with whipped cream from an aerosol can. Not the way I usually do it, but sometimes the cook is out of time and out of whipping cream. In my book, it’s the filling that makes the pie! Make any necessary adjustments you need to truly enjoy your pie!

Fresh Strawberry Pie

INGREDIENTS

For the Filling

• 3 pint baskets of strawberries—the ones in the ubiquitous small, green, square baskets
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¼ cup cornstarch
• 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice—from one lemon
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• pinch of salt

For the Pie Crust

• 1 prebaked pie crust—graham, shortbread, or shortcrust
• Approximately ½ cup chopped chocolate, melted
• Sweetened whipped cream, to serve

DIRECTIONS

Crust

1. Melt chocolate in microwave on 50% power or set over a bowl of hot water. Stir until smooth.
2. Working quickly, with a spatula or an offset knife, spread melted chocolate over the bottom of the crust. This might be tricky, the crumbs might crawl onto your knife. Use a light touch, and don’t worry if it looks a mess, no one will see it, and it will be covered with the delicious strawberry filling.
3. Place crust in the refrigerator to harden the chocolate while preparing the filling.

Filling

1. Put one basket of the strawberries, hulled and chopped, into a saucepan along with the sugar and cornstarch.
2. Muddle or mash everything together to blend ingredients and partially liquefy the strawberries.
3. Bring to a boil, and continue to simmer and stir/mash until sauce is hot and thick—mixture should be thicker than jam.
4. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice, salt, and butter.
5. Cool to room temperature.

Preparation

1. While the sauce is cooling, wash, stem and slice the remaining two baskets of strawberries, you should have approximately 4 cups of sliced berries.
2. Stir the sliced strawberries into the cooled sauce.
3. Pour mixture into prepared pie crust—it’s in the refrigerator with a thin coating of chocolate!
4. Refrigerate pie until ready to serve, then serve with whipped cream.

Thanks for stopping by my summer kitchen today!