Easy Fresh Strawberry Pie With a Beautiful Lattice Crust

I'm from a place called Wexford, Ireland. And in Wexford, we are known for having some of the most amazing strawberries in the whole of Ireland. Our soil is a little bit different and we end up with these small, juicy, really sweet strawberries. They are amazing. Now that I live here in LA, I go to the farmer's market on the weekend. And during the summertime, I get all the beautiful fruit they have on offer. The strawberries here are absolutely amazing. And while they are in season and at their very best, I am going to make for you my delicious strawberry pie. So let's go. So the star of the show here is obviously this lovely big punnet of strawberries. So what you want to do is wash them and then we're just going to take off the whole I've a little bit of pet peeve when it comes to taking off the whole I just do the whole and I leave all of the lovely strawberry I can't stand when I see people chop them and leave half of the attached to the whole. So you just want to have these quarter them, they're going to cook down really well. So as I cut these, I'm just going to throw them in my nice big mixing bowl here. So there's a few reasons why you want to buy fresh berries like strawberries in season. Number one, they're at their cheapest in the summertime. So you get way more for way less. Number two, the flavor is better, they look better, they're juicy, they're sweet. When you buy them in October, which we all have done, you know, you buy these big strawberries, and it could be a little bit watery, and they don't have that lovely, beautiful flavor that we know and love from strawberries. So try and buy them in season as best you can. And a little trick of what I do when I go to the farmer's market, I buy extra while they're in season, I take off the halls, I pop them in the freezer, and then I have frozen ones for Georgie for smoothies for putting into desserts, whatever you like. When making a strawberry pie. However, I do use fresh strawberries rather than frozen because frozen can let out a little bit too much liquid. And we don't want that. So use fresh strawberries. So here I have a lovely big bowl of summer strawberries. Now here's my secret ingredient when it comes to strawberry pie. Now a lot of you know that strawberries can be a little bit watery. And you want something in your pie to soak up that water, otherwise it can be kind of soggy. Here is my secret. It is an apple, I'm using a Granny Smith apple, use whatever you use for baking. This soaks up all the lovely juice and it makes your pie nice and thick. So all I do is just get a grater and grate that in there just one apple and it really makes all the difference. And you'll notice that when you go to cut your pie and you cut a big thick slice, it all stays together, it doesn't fall apart. That's because of your apple. So that's my little sneaky trick for you. Okay, so now into this, I'm going to add in a little bit of sugar, just to bring out the extra sweetness in the strawberries. I'm going to add in some cornflour. Now what this does, it thickens all those lovely juices, it'll work with the apple and will thicken the juices. So add a little bit of cornflour in there, a squeeze of fresh lemon. The reason we add in lemon is it kind of balances the flavor. You see me do this a lot with fruit, adding a splash of lemon juice in there. And then my favorite if you don't have this, you can leave it out. But a little splash of vanilla extract or even if you had a vanilla pod, adding some seeds in there, strawberries and vanilla are best friends. So I like to add a little dash into my pie filling. Then I give it a little stir. And that is our strawberry pie filling super easy. Now what I'm going to do is set it over to the side. I'm just going to give it some time in the bowl that all those flavors kind of marry together just get super tasty. While they're doing that, I'm going to roll out my pie crust and I'm going to show you how you can easily create a lattice on top of your pie without all the hard work like usual. So now let's talk pie crust. This is my pie crust from BiggerBolderBaking.com. I use this for everything. I really love it. So this is one of the pie crusts and this is going to be the base for our pie. So what you want to do is roll this out. Now this will make around a nine to 10 inch pie. And then what you want to do is roll it out to around 11 12 inches if you can because you always want that extra pie crust to hang over. So it makes it easier to work with. Just roll out as big as you can. And if it breaks, don't worry, we can patch it together at the end. Okay, so this is the right size. What I'm going to do is take my rolling pin. I'm just going to move over my pastry, bring in my pie pan. And as carefully as you can lay your pie crust into your pie pan. This is where sometimes it does break. So I rolled my pie crust nice and big, but there are a few little gaps and I'm just going to take that extra bit of pastry, move it around the pie and just fill in those little gaps. So there you go. Look at that lovely, a little bit of patchwork and nobody will know the difference. So as your pie filling in there, set it over to the side. And we're going to make a quick lattice for the top. So flour your surface again and roll out a nice big circle. Again, around 10-11 inches. This does not need to be thick. Lovely. I like to move it around the board so it doesn't stick. Sometimes they can stick because of all that lovely butter in there. So here's what we're going to do. Take a sharp knife or you can also use a pizza cutter and just cut nice big strips around half an inch to three quarters of an inch thick. So here's my secret to my cheats lattice. Lay the strips down directly on your pie crust, do one layer. And then what we're going to do is rather than do all of that weaving that takes a lot of attention to detail and time, which sometimes I don't think I have, I'm going to lay the other strips going the other direction directly on top. So you don't have to do all of that little bit of going back and forth. So you still get that beautiful look, but you don't have to go through all that work. Gorgeous. There you go. A beautiful lattice on top of a pie. No one's going to know the difference. What I like to do is just egg wash it. So it bakes up golden brown and just sprinkle over a little bit of sugar onto the crust. I have to say, I think this looks pretty awesome and it would be a beautiful dessert for a summer's day. But now let's get it into the oven. So start out by baking this pie in a hot oven, 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius for around 20 minutes. Then we're going to turn down the heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 180 degrees Celsius for around 45 minutes or so. Let it continue to cook, get lovely golden brown and nice and crispy. Look at that. It looks gorgeous. I'm delighted with how it looks. You can see all the juice bubbling up. The thing about this pie is that you do want to let it cool down before you cut into it because it's much easier to slice. For my strawberry pie, I am adding on a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. Oh my gosh. The pastry is still crispy. The strawberries are so sweet, but still have all of their lovely strawberry flavor. There's a little bit of vanilla in there that I can taste, which is absolutely delicious. So the reason we added in the corn flour and added in that apple was to soak up all of the juice that comes. You can see this pie is lovely and juicy. If you want to make this the day before and slice it the next day, then that's totally fine. It has a lovely buttery crust and vanilla ice cream on top. This pie has it all. Head to your farmer's market this weekend and pick up some lovely summer strawberries. 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