Pie-a-Day #13 Strawberry Cream with Chocolate Crust

The first Strawberry Pie of this ongoing project wasn’t fabulous so I’ve been combing through pie books for inspiration. I came upon a great idea in the massive tome, Pie by Ken Haedrich. It starts with a chocolate crust that’s allowed to cool then napped with cornstarch thickened strawberry puree. Sliced raw berries are arranged atop the puree and then topped with whipped cream enhanced with more strawberry puree.

Angeli this afternoon to find that chef Kathy had blind baked a beautiful chocolate crust made from a recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours. It smelled and looked wonderful. So I chopped up some strawberries, added a bit of lemon zest and sugar then cooked the fruit down to a thick puree, relying on the pectin in the fruit to thicken the puree. I poured the boiling strawberry puree into a large bowl and put it in the walk-in refrigerator to cool down.

It was a bit hit with my servers. I only hope that they don’t eat it all.