My mom has been agitating for a glazed strawberry pie. You know the kind, where fresh strawberries are held together by a matrix of red glop. I was skeptical until I saw that Rose Levy Beranbaum had a recipe inspired by a family obsession with this kind of pie. So remember how I thought I had my cornstarch disability licked? Well, one look at this candidate for the Little Shop of Horrors will tell the story.
The glop is created with a lightly sweetened, dilute mixture of cran-raspberry concentrate thickened with cornstarch. It seemed perfect. The mixture turned deep pinkish red and thickened. The cornstarch flavor cooked out. And then it started to cool. And got thicker. And thicker. So thick I was afraid that the perfectly ripe and fragile Harry’s Berries would be crushed by the weight of the glop. But hey, that’s what moms are for…to eat your mistakes and swallow the criticism.
I had made a really delicious chocolate crust from Dorie Greenspan. So I bit the bullet so to speak and mixed the berries with the glop. A few of them fell apart, but I soldiered on and poured the bloody goo into the pie shell and popped it into the fridge. After I got home from lovely cocktails at The Varnish with fabu group of ladies, I opened the fridge and pulled out the pie. Mom was ready for a late night snack. I cut the pie, plopped it on a plate and brought it to her in bed. She loved it. I tried it. It was delicious. Bloody delicious. Note to self, call RLB and ask for a tutorial on thickeners.