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How to make a strawberry pie?
The classic strawberry pie
When you go to your favorite pastry chef or even your competitor to find a strawberry pie, often the products are similar. Indeed, in classic pastry, the strawberry tart recipe seems immutable: sweet shortbread, vanilla pastry cream, and a multitude of fresh strawberries on top and “forward Guingamp”. If at home, we want to achieve the pastry look, we do not forget to brush our strawberries with a little heated jam to bring out all their “glow”. Strawberries are the stars of this dessert, so they deserve to shine brightly!
Cooked strawberry pie
If, in the standard version, the fruits are exposed as raw as possible, you can also choose to cook the strawberries. In this case, some clarification is required. Baked strawberries don’t look like raw strawberries at all – we know you know but it’s always good to repeat – and it’s going to have several implications for the final look of the dessert. When cooking, the strawberry loses a lot of volume. In fact, it gets rid of its water, which can have the effect of soaking the dough, but also of obtaining a dessert low in fruit if one did not have a generous enough hand. Keep in mind: when you cook strawberries, it is better to add a lot.
Also, when cooked, the strawberry loses a bit of its radiance and its alluring redness. In itself, nothing serious of course – the taste does not change – but it is better to know that rather than to be disappointed when opening the oven.
No-bake strawberry pie
You can also choose to prepare a completely raw strawberry tart by focusing on a base composed of powdered oilseeds, dates, and agave syrup. You can also opt for a dough similar to that of a cheesecake by mixing biscuits (Petit Beurre, Speculoos, Digestive, etc.) with melted butter, before allowing everything to firm up in the fridge for a few minutes.
Which strawberry for which season?
Depending on the month of the year, the availability of strawberries changes. We voluntarily skip the red greenhouse strawberries, tasteless, available in December, which grips our hearts as much as our pupils …
From March, the first strawberries appear. First the gariguette (March to June), the ciflorette (March to July), the cléry (March to June), the darselect (April to June then October until early November), the charlotte (April to early November), or the Mara des Bois (May to October). Obviously, these periods can change slightly from year to year depending on the weather, if winter extends, or if, on the contrary, spring gets ahead.
Another wonderful product for a strawberry pie: wild strawberry. With its very subtle notes, wild strawberries is a little gem which unfortunately comes at a much higher cost than its more plump counterparts. The right idea? Play on individual tarts on which a few wild strawberries will wake up the dessert alternately with standard strawberries. Also, the wild strawberry is such a fine and expensive fruit that it would be a shame to cook it. We prefer it raw as a finish, this is where it plays its finest score.
Here are 18 proposals, from the most classic to the most original, to rediscover this dessert that never sees the passage of time.