It’s no surprise that this strawberry pie recipe is fantastic! It features fresh strawberries, homemade pie crust and layers of homemade whipped cream with a bit of cream cheese frosting mixed in it. Everything tastes better with cream cheese frosting!
About the Recipe
The recipe is adapted from a family cookbook recipe: Strawberry Pie with Cream Cheese Surprise by Ken’s grand aunt Connie.
I did make a couple of minor changes to the recipes. First, it called for a carton of Cool Whip. I made some homemade whipped cream instead. It also called for a package of strawberry glaze. I made my own glaze from another Strawberry Glaze Pie recipe from The Complete Family Cookbook circa 1969. The recipe in this book is very similar to Connie’s, except Connie’s folds whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture – making it much lighter and fluffier.
And of course, for the pie crust, I used Connie’s pie crust recipe that she included in the cookbook with her peach cobbler recipe. I’ve never made another pie crust recipe since encountering this one. It’s that good!
Every strawberry pie recipe I found called for pre-baking the pie crust. I followed the instructions in Williams-Sonoma Pie & Tart book for pre-baking a pie crust.
Ken was amused I was making this recipe from so many different cookbooks – and decided to take a picture of the process. 🙂
How to Make It
Make your pie crust. Mix together your flour and salt. Cut in your shortening.
Then stir in your milk, until the dough comes together.
Shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill for about 20 minutes.
Hull and slice about four cups of strawberries. Save two cups to the side for the pie.
Roll out your crust between two sheets of wax paper for easier clean up.
Place the crust in the pie tin, and poke it a few times with a fork to prevent rising.
Dust the crust with flour to prevent the parchment paper from sticking to it. Lay a piece of parchment paper on top the pie crust, and fill the pan with rice for weight.
Partially bake the crust for 20 minutes at 375 in the lower third of the oven. Remove the rice and parchment paper. Finish baking the crust until golden, about 7 more minutes. Let cool.
Puree two cups of the sliced strawberries in a food processor.
Put the strawberry puree into a saucepan. Add sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Set aside to cool.
Make your whipped cream. Place two cups of heaving whipping cream in a chilled mixing bowl. Add four tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Whisk until soft peaks form.
In another mixing bowl, cream together the cream cheese and powdered sugar.
Gently fold in half the whipped cream. Save the remaining whipped cream in the refrigerator for the top of the finished pie. Spread the whipped cream and cream cheese mixture into the cooled pie crust.
Arrange sliced strawberries over the top.
Spread the cooled strawberry glaze over the sliced strawberries. Chill pie in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Then when you are ready, you can surprise your family and friends with this fabulous dessert! Just slice and serve with a dollop of the remaining whipped cream. Enjoy!
PS – I have one more surprise to share. The photos in this post were taken by Ken, instead of me – in case you were wondering how I managed to take photos showing both of my hands making pie crust. 🙂 If you want to see more of Ken’s photos, check out his blog at kristau.net.
