Make Craft Game

I started with the pastry because it needs to be chilled, cooked, and cooled before I can load it up with the filling. To make the pastry, I put together the flour and salt before rubbing in the butter. Using an appropriate bowl for this step is important. If the bowl edges are too high, it can be very uncomfortable since you have the rub the butter in with your hands.

Afterwards I added powdered sugar and egg. I could have done this with a mixer, but my hands were already messy, so I just kept going. Why not use the OG stirring tool? It also allowed me to shape the dough a bit easier and get everything nicely packed into a ball.

Then came shaping. Shaping pastry is something I struggle with, I never know if it’s going to be too thick or too thin. I feel like I rarely get it just right. I placed a piece of parchment paper on top of the dough to prevent it from sticking to the rolling pin. The dough was malleable and became quite a nice disc (although I think I left it a little too thick).

As gently as I could, I draped the dough into the pie pan and pushed it into the edges. I really wanted to get that pie, zig-zag shape. Cutting off the excess bits is also important. Doing this step while the pastry is still dough makes a much cleaner look.

With the dough shaped, I placed it in the fridge to cool. This gives butter a chance to solidify back up and become a bit more structural. Before putting the dough in the oven, I laid a piece of parchment paper on top of it and covered it with pennies.

The dough wants to rise and breath. The pennies help add weight to keep the shape. This method is called blind baking and people often use pastry weights for this process. Pennies were easier for me because I had them.

I baked the dough with the pennies for half the time before removing them and baking the pastry for a bit longer. This helps bake the dough all the way through, but the shape is mostly set up at this point. The second bake just helps give it that extra crisp. I left the dough to cool down while I moved on to work on the filling.

Strawberry pie filling is made mostly over a stove. I used a saucepan as my main vessel for cooking the filling. I added strawberries, sugar, water, and lemon juice. The lemon juice helps brighten the whole dish. I also used a potato masher to mash up the strawberries. Even after quite a bit of mashing, I couldn’t get the mixture smooth. It was more like a mixture of smooth and chunky.

Then I put the mixture of a medium / high heat to bring everything to a boil. I did continue to mash the mixture occasionally with the hope that the heat would help break up some of the chunks. Once the mixture was boiling, I added in the cornstarch and gelatin. Both ingredients should easily dissolve in this heat.

Then it was time to let the mixture simmer, reduce, and thicken. During this time, I would stir occasionally to make sure that I kept an eye on the mixture. The filling should coat the back of a wooden spoon and have a slight resistance to tell when it’s ready.

The last thing I did was mix the remaining strawberries into the mixture after taking it off the stove. This keeps some strawberries chunks in to provide texture. The strawberries getting incorporated in different ways just give the strawberry pie that extra something. I then poured the filling into the crust and left the pie to set. The pie was chilled while setting so I didn’t have to worry about it being out on the counter.