Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

This post is long overdue, but I am finishing it anyway because I want to remember exactly how I made this strawberry rhubarb pie. Every spring for the past few years I have make at least one strawberry rhubarb pie, because I love the flavors of strawberry and rhubarb together. Some years I have more success than others, and I think that this year's pie is worth repeating. I actually made strawberry rhubarb pie twice this year, and can you believe that I forgot to take a picture of it both times? I'd like to blame the lack of a picture on the fact that the pie gets eaten so quickly. But, I do realize that I could have taken a picture of my own piece before digging in.

The first time I made the pie this year was for Michael's birthday in June. I learned the hard way that the rhubarb needs to be cut quite thin, otherwise the pieces of rhubarb don't get soft as quickly as the strawberry and you end up with crunchy rhubarb in your pie. And you don't want crunchy pie. The other thing I discovered is that if I baked the pie long enough to soften the thickly-cut rhubarb, the juices bubbled over and made a mess all over the bottom of my oven. Because I wanted to try to learn from my mistakes, and because I just really like strawberry rhubarb pie, I made it again when my sister Stacy and her husband Dave came to visit us over the July 4th weekend. This time the pie turned out just as I had hoped, and it was gone in about 24 hours.

Here are a couple of additional tips I've learned from experience. First, making a pie crust using gluten-free flour is an exciting endeavor (or, as Michael might prefer to say, an unbelievably frustrating endeavor). Gluten-free pie dough is very fragile and tends to break easily, so try to let go of your preconceptions of what the perfect pie crust should be like. It's normal to need to perform some minor surgery on the pie dough once it's in the pie plate. The second tip is to give yourself lots of time to make this pie. It takes quite a while to make the crust and to mix up the filling and the crumb topping. Then it takes even longer to bake the pie, and a while longer to let the pie cool. I would budget at least 3 hours for the whole process the first time you're making the pie.

Lastly, the crust for this pie was inspired by a recipe in Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. The filling was based on the following recipe for strawberry rhubarb pie. And the crumb topping was based on a recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook as well as the following crisp recipe.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
makes 1 9-inch pie

Ingredients for the pie crust:

• 1 1/4 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 1 Tbsp. granulated white sugar
  
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/3 cup Spectrum Organic shortening
• 5 Tbsp. ice water

Ingredients for the pie filling:

• 1 lb. strawberries
• 1 lb. rhubarb
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 cup quick-cooking tapioca

Ingredients for the crumb topping:

• 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free oats OR 1/2 cup chopped pecans (make sure that the pecans are not coated in corn oil)
• 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar (I'm not sure which amount I like better.)
  
• 1/3 cup Spectrum Organic shortening

Instructions for making the crust:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Take a drinking glass and fit it with water and several ice cubes. In a medium bowl, combine the first three ingredients for making the crust: the flour, sugar, and salt. Then cut in the shortening until the pieces are the size of small peas. Pour 5 tablespoons of water onto the mixture one at a time, tossing the mixture so that it becomes moistened all over. Use your hands to form the dough into a ball.

Lay a large dish towel on a flat surface and sprinkle it with some gluten-free flour. Place the dough on the towel and sprinkle the dough with a bit more of the flour. Then gently roll out the dough with a rolling pin until the dough is 3 or 4 inches wider in diameter than the top circumference of the 9-inch pie plate. Sprinkle the dough with more flour at any point in the rolling process if the rolling pin starts to stick to the dough. When the dough has been rolled enough, lay the pie plate face-down on top of the flattened dough. Grab the edges of the dish towel and gently pull them over the bottom of the pie plate (which is right now facing you). Grab the ends of the dish towel with one hand and quickly flip the entire dish towel and pie plate over so that the pie plate is now face up with the pie dough inside it. Gently press the dough into the pie plate and crimp the edges around the top of the pie plate.

To make the pie filling:

Rinse the strawberries and cut the green tops off. Cut the strawberries into 1/4-inch slices and place in a large bowl. Rinse the rhubarb and cut off the ends. Thinly cut the rhubarb into 1/8-inch slices and place in the same bowl. Add the other ingredients for the pie filling to the bowl -- the sugars, lemon juice, salt, and tapioca -- and stir to combine, so that the fruit is coated with remaining ingredients.

To make the crumb topping:

In a small bowl stir together the flour, oats or chopped nuts, and brown sugar. Cut in the shortening, or just use your fingers to combine the shortening with the other ingredients.

To complete the pie:

Pour the pie filling into the unbaked pie crust. Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over the filling. Cover the entire pie with a piece of aluminum foil and place in the oven for 25 minutes. Remove the aluminum foil from the pie, turn the heat down to 375 degrees, and let the pie bake another 15 minutes. (If your oven tends to run hot, turn the heat down to 350 degrees so that the crumb topping doesn't burn.) Then check to see if the crumb topping is getting brown. If the crumb topping is browned but the pie is not bubbling, put the aluminum foil back over the pie and let it bake for another 10 to 15 minutes, unless the pie is bubbling. Remove the pie from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack for as long as you are able to wait. I actually think the pie tastes even better at room temperature the next day, although my second favorite option is to have the pie while it's still hot with some vanilla coconut-milk ice cream on the side.