Strawberry rhubarb pie is a celebration of the season, combining two items at their peak this time of year. Lusciously sweet strawberries and tart red rhubarb make the best pie. As you can see from my pie photo, I haven’t mastered a beautiful crimped edge, but I’m here to tell you that it tastes delicious no matter how it looks.
I haven’t made a lot of strawberry rhubarb pies. But, having made a couple of them this spring, I’ve realized it isn’t hard to make the crust and the result is totally worth it.
This recipe makes 8 servings.
Tips
- When making the crusts, instead of cutting the butter into small pieces, you can grate it into the dry ingredients. The butter should be very cold if you’re grating it (frozen works).
- I go light on the spices, because I like the fruit flavors to stand out. Use more spices if you want.
- You can make the pie dough the day before making the pie. Be sure to wrap it in something air tight so it doesn’t dry out.
- If you don’t have enough dough around the edges of the pie, you may need to add extra pieces of dough, pressing them together to have enough crust to crimp the edges. I found that placing longer pieces of the top lattice strips over sections of the pie that needed more crust helped. I could use the extra dough that hung over the edges to make up for shortages of dough on the bottom.
Ingredients
You need the following ingredients to make strawberry rhubarb pie.
Crust Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup butter, very cold, cut into small pieces
- 4 – 6 tablespoons ice water
Filling Ingredients
- 2 cups rhubarb, stalks chopped into about 1/2-inch pieces
- 3 cups strawberries, washed, stemmed and cut in half (quartered if very large)
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- A couple pinches of nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
Finishing Ingredients
After the pie is made, you need the following ingredients to top the pie.
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
Directions
Make Crusts
Combine the flour and salt in a medium mixing bowl.
Using a pastry blender or two table knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it is very crumbly and in small pieces.
Sprinkle the first four tablespoons of ice water onto the flour mixture, lightly stirring between each spoonful. If the dough is still too dry to hold together, stir in another tablespoon and check consistency. You want the dough to be just moist enough to stick together.
Shape the dough into two balls, very lightly coat them in flour, and store them in plastic wrap. Keep them in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them.
Preheat the Oven and Prepare a Baking Sheet
Before making the pie, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Make the Filling
Put the rhubarb and strawberries in a large mixing bowl.
In a smaller mixing bowl, add the flour, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon and stir everything together.
Pour the dry ingredients over the rhubarb and strawberries and blend everything until the fruit is coated.
Prepare the Pie Crusts
Lightly dust a flat surface with flour and roll out one ball of dough in a large circle that is about 12 inches in diameter (approximately 1/8-inch thick). Lightly dust the surface and rolling pin as needed to keep the dough from sticking.
Carefully lift the crust and put it in an 8-inch pie pan. Try to not stretch it. Use about half of the soft butter to put small dabs of the butter on the crust and gently spread the butter over the bottom of the crust (see the crust in the next photo). This helps keep the crust from getting too wet from the fruit juices.
(Note that my pie crust in the photo isn’t perfect. I had to add a little extra dough to sections of the edges, as I described in the Tips section.)
Roll out the other ball of dough to the same size as the first one. Cut the dough into strips (1/2- to 1-inch wide). I used a pizza cutter and the rolling pin as a guide for cutting.
Assemble the Pie
Fill the bottom pie crust with the fruit mixture. Using the rest of the soft butter, scatter little bits of butter over the filling.
Layer some strips of the cut pie dough over the pie surface and then weave the remaining pieces in a lattice pattern that covers the top of the pie. To weave them, gently fold strips back and forth as shown in the next photo.
When the lattice is complete, crimp the top and bottom edges of dough together to make a seal. Do this by pinching the pieces with your fingers (or use a fork to press down on the edges).
Brush the top and edges of the crust with the heavy cream. Sprinkle sugar over the top.
Put the pie on the lined baking sheet. Bake the pie for 10 minutes at 425 degrees, then lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake the pie until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling (about 50 minutes). If the crust edges start to brown too much, cover them with strips of aluminum foil to prevent them from burning.
Cool the pie on a rack for about a half hour before serving. It’s delicious with vanilla ice cream.
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