It was pie as procrastination — there is no doubt. Faced with a long list of overdue tasks and a full inbox, I chose instead to stop time and bake a strawberry rhubarb pie with a picture-perfect lattice top. The farmers market strawberries were on their last legs and the stalks of rhubarb were only getting stalkier. Email can wait. Produce cannot.
I stopped at each stage of the process to take pictures and jot down notes so I could share the pie with you. At least, that way, I could pretend I was working. Goodness knows, my new recipe posts have been few and far between this spring. I have been so busy traveling and doing events to promote my new cookbook, Food Swap, that I have barely had any time just to play in my kitchen; to be inspired by the bounty of the farmers market or to try my hand at a new skill.
Not that I am complaining, mind you. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities I have had to share Food Swap with the world. I spent a whirlwind weekend doing five — count ’em, five — events in my hometown of Washington DC. I did twenty-two interviews with radio stations all over the country. I got to demonstrate three recipes from Food Swap in the Food and Dining Tent at the Printers Row Lit Fest this past weekend, following such luminaries as Rick Bayless, Dorie Greenspan and Ruth Reichl.
And the book tour is just beginning. In the next few months, I will be coming to Orlando, San Francisco, Orange County, Philly, New York, Seattle and Portland. In between trips, I will be speaking and doing demos all around Chicago. (The best way to keep track of where I am is to check out my Events and Classes page.) It’s all incredibly exciting. But it makes for some hectic days.
So, today, while I had a free afternoon — if you don’t count that lengthy to-do list — and all the ingredients, I just decided to do nothing else and make a pie. Working with pastry forces you to relax because rushing only leads to disaster. And there is something deeply satisfying about taking a project from beginning to end in the space of an afternoon and having something tangible to show for it. Especially when so much of my time these days is spent in project-management mode planning and preparing for my book events.
So why did I choose to give this pie a lattice top? Well, for one thing, strawberry rhubarb pie looks great with a lattice top which allows the beautiful pink filling to peek through. But also, strawberry rhubarb is a particularly juicy pie and a lattice-top allows for more moisture to evaporate. (It’s also important to add something to the filling to thicken it. I recommend tapioca starch which thickens well without adding a weird flavor.)
So, if your summer is getting a little too crazy, slow down time by making a pie. No one will blame you for putting off your to-do list, I promise.
Ingredients
- 7 ounces cold, unsalted European-style butter
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ½ cup ice water
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar
- 3 cups sliced strawberries (about 1 1/2 quarts)
- 3 cups sliced rhubarb (about 1 farmers market bunch)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- Juice of a half a lemon
- 1/4 cup tapioca starch
- Zest of one orange
- 1 TB whole milk
- 1 TB heavy cream
- Demerera or Turbinado sugar
Instructions
- Cut the butter into small cubes and place half of the cubes in the freezer. Return the other half to the refrigerator until needed.
- Combine the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to mix. Add the chilled butter from the refrigerator to the dry ingredients and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
- Add the frozen butter to the food processor and pulse until the butter is in small but still visible pieces.
- Combine the lemon juice and ice water and add six tablespoons of the mixture to the ingredients in the food processor. Pulse several times until combined. Pinch a bit of the dough and if it holds together, you do not need to add more liquid. If it is still dry, add more of the liquid, one-half tablespoon at a time. Remove the dough to a bowl or a well-floured board.
- Knead the dough until it forms a ball. Divide the dough into two and wrap each half well in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator to relax for at least a half-hour but preferably overnight.
- Begin by rolling out the bottom crust: remove one of the balls of dough from the refrigerator. If your dough was chilled for longer than thirty minutes, allow to soften for ten to fifteen minutes before rolling it out.
- Prior to rolling out the dough, strike it with your rolling pin to flatten. This will soften it further.
- Preheat the oven to 400 and grease the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie plate.
- Liberally dust a pastry board or mat and your rolling pin with flour.
- Roll the dough out, rotating it and turning it frequently and adding more flour as necessary to keep it from sticking, until it is the size of your pie plate and between ¼ and ⅛ of an inch thick.
- Carefully center the pie dough in the plate and press it into the bottom and sides. Trim or fold over any excess dough around the edges.
- Sprinkle the bottom of the plate with a teaspoon each of sugar and flour to prevent the filling from making the crust soggy
- Chill the dough in the pie plate 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, prepare the filling by combining the strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, lemon juice, tapioca starch and orange zest in a large bowl. Toss to combine and set aside to allow the sugar and lemon juice to draw out the berries' juice.
- Prepare the lattice top by rolling out the second dough ball as described above.
- Using a paring knife or fluted pastry wheel, cut even strips of dough about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick.
- Place the filling in the prepared pie pan.
- Create a lattice top by laying out strips of dough horizontally, using the shorter strips on the edges and the longest strips for the middle.
- Fold back every other strip and lay down one vertical strip of dough. Unfold the strips of dough. (The one vertical strip should be woven over and under the horizontal strips.)
- Fold back the strips you did not fold back the first time and lay down a second vertical strip of dough. Unfold. Repeat with remaining strips of dough to create a woven lattice.
- Trim any excess that hangs over the edge and then crimp together the edges of the bottom and top crusts.
- Mix together the milk and cream and brush it over the top and edges of the crust.
- Sprinkle with the Demerera or Turbinado sugar
- Bake for 40-50 minutes until crust is deep golden and filling is bubbling. Check halfway throuh baking and cover the edges of the crust with tin foil or use a pie crust shield to prevent them from burning.
- Cool on a rack completely before slicing.
