Jo’s Strawberry Pie

Strawberries again today, but I love strawberries, and when they are in season I buy them often. They are one of my favorites, they are very fragrant and are an excellent source of dietary fiber and Vitamins C and K. So there, my pie is not all bad for you. Now my pie, is not just a regular strawberry pie. My strawberry pie is 4 layers of goodness. First layer is of nutella, second layer is a delicious vanilla custard, and third layer  is a berry custard and then finally the strawberries.

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Start by making the pie crust, now you can definitely use a store bought pie crust or use your favorite pie crust recipe to make this, but in case you have neither, this recipe for the pie crust was super easy. In a large bowl, start with a cup of flour, 1/4 cup of powdered sugar and 1 stick (1/2 cup) of butter at room temperature.

Using two knives start cutting into the butter and mixing it in with the flour. Do as much as you can with the knives, then use your hands to go in there and work the dough, although it seems like it will never come together, keep at it and eventually, after a couple minutes or so it will all come together. Place the dough in your pie dish.

Using your fingers, spread the dough over the entire pie dish. When done, take a fork and poke holes all over the bottom of the crust.

Place the pie dish in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until golden. In the meantime we can start making the custard. In a sauce pan add 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of flour.

Add in 1 1/2 cups of milk and using and whisk it in gradually. Turn the heat on to medium high and continue whisking. You will notice the milk mixture will thicken.

In a small bowl whisk 2 egg yolks.

Next we want to temper the eggs, because we don’t want to add them directly to the hot milk mixture because it will cook the eggs, so to do this, take a ladle and add a couple ladles of the milk mixture to the egg yolks and mix it together.

Next add the egg mixture to the sauce pan and continue whisking. Add 1 tbsp of butter and 1 tsp of vanilla extract and whisk away.

You only have to do this until the custard starts boiling and it’s thick enough, then you can take it off the heat, place it in a bowl and let it cool completely.

By now, the pie crust is probably ready so take it out of the oven and let it cool completely.

Next we can start on berry custard. First I cleaned all the strawberries, so you’ll need about 4 cups of strawberries.

In a blender add about 5 strawberries, a cup of blueberries and 1 cup of raspberry concentrate.

Blend everything together. Place the mixture into a small sauce pan. Add 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of sugar and whisk everything together. Turn the heat on to medium high and same as the vanilla custard, whisk away until the mixture goes to a boil and you’ll notice it thickens as you continue cooking it.

Let this custard cool completely as well. Now that the pie crust is cooled, spread about 1/4 cup of nutella over the crust. You don’t want too much, remember we just want a bit, a little goes a long way.

Next add all the vanilla custard to the pie.

Add the berry custard next.

Now I sliced all the strawberries into thirds. Next add all the strawberries to the pie, here you can be as creative as you want and pile it as high as you want with strawberries. Look how gorgeous it is.

Enjoy!