Strawberry Pies

Happy Pie Day you guys!! I hope you guys are filling your day with some scrumptious pies, be them sweet or savoury. I’m a savoury pie person, but since the strawberries available are so amazing, I knew I had to make a delicious strawberry pie.

Rather than making one large pie, I decided to make a bunch of mini pies, and put them on a stick. You know kind of like a pie pop.

I’ve made everything for the pies from scratch, including the jam. For the pie crust, I used some of my eggless pie crust from the snickers tart recipe I did a few months ago.

For the jam:

500g strawberries, diced
200g castor sugar
1tsp lemon juice

Start by working on your jam since it takes time, and also needs time to cool.

In a sauce pan add the strawberries and sugar with about a couple of tablespoons of water and allow it to cook and reduce for about 20 minutes. Stir the pot every once in a while to ensure that the sugar doesn’t burn. When the jam is the consistency you want, add some of the lemon juice.

The lemon juice in the jam helps prevent the sugar in it from crystallizing. It’s, therefore, an essential ingredient.

Allow the jam to cool, and start work on your pie crust.

As soon as the crust is well rested, roll it out between two sheets of parchment paper, and using a cookie cutter of your choice cut out the dough in multiples of two.

I laid out the cut crusts directly onto a baking tray that I had lined with parchment paper. So if you’re making 5 pies, you need to have 10 crusts, however only lay down 5. Place a lollipop stick and press it into the dough.

Next place single spoonfuls of the jam into the center of each crust.

I lightly brushed the edges with a bit of melted butter so that the top crust stays one.

Gently place the top crust and press the bottom and top together. I used a fork to crimp the edges a little bit. Then using a sharp paring knife make a little cross cut on the top crust.

Bake the pies at 180C for about 18-20 minutes. Ensure that the pies are in the lower third of the oven since the direct heat from the top can cause the lollipop sticks to melt.

At about the 10-minute mark, I brushed on a little bit of melted butter to help give the pies some extra colour. Normally the colour on pies comes from an egg wash that is done before baking, however since we are trying to keep this eggless, a little bit of extra butter can help do the job.