Donald Market is the new food market that I discovered on my random bus ride. It is located in the corner of Hestine and Nanaimo street. I was attracted by its colorful street stand showcasing some of the freshest seasonal fruits and vegetable. From the countless numbers of spring/summer seasonal delights, I picked strawberry and rhubarb for their color, red, being so bright that I simply cannot resist them.
Whenever I shop of sweets, I’ve never wanted to pick-up a strawberry and rhubarb pie despite it is the one of the most popular baked desert. I dislike the taste of store-brand after a bad experience with the Safeway pie. Plus, the celery-like rhubarb stalk looked so weird that I don’t know how to deal with it. So naturally, strawberry rhubarb became the combination I try to avoid, for so long, until one blog entry changed my mind about this duo. So this time I want to try to make this pie myself, to see the difference. I adopt the recipe from the “Simply Recipes“, it goes as following:
3 cups rhubarb stalks cut into 1/2 inch pieces (Trim outside stringy layer of large rhubarb stalks; make sure to trim away any and discard of the leaves which are poisonous; trim ends.)
1 cup strawberries, stemmed and sliced
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons of quick cooking tapioca
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of grated orange peel
Unbaked pastry for two-crust 9 inch pie
Note: In the recipe of pie-crust, it called for freezing for at least one hour. I found it too long that the dough was hardened so much that defrost take a while. So if you are going to make it in a hurry, make sure you defrost the dough first and then combine the filling with sugar, otherwise too much juice will come out.
Preheat oven to 400°F.
1 Mix the rhubarb and the strawberries with the sugar, tapioca, salt, and orange rind. Let sit for 10 minutes.
2 Turn into a pastry lined pan. Top with the pastry, trim the edge, and crimp the top and bottom edges together. Cut slits in the top for the steam to escape.
3 Bake at 400°F for 20 minutes, reduce heat to 350°F, and bake an additional 30-40 minutes longer. Cool on a rack. Serve warm or cold. If you do cool to room temperature, the juices will have more time to thicken.
The pie came out really nice! a great balance between the sweetness of sugar and strawberry and the sourness of rhubarb, with a hint of orange zest, just wonderful! Now I truly understand the difference between the home-baked-pie and the commercial made one. The pie crust is quite buttery, a nice contrast with the gluey filling. This is my very first pie as well, so I am quite happy with it. I think from now, I will make more pies, with different fillings, ah…..I’ve already got a list of different pies I want to try~ ^_^
Filed under: Baking, Comfort Food, Desserts, Pie, rhurbarb, strawberry
I’m so glad the pie recipe worked out for you! Isn’t it wonderful to be in strawberry rhubarb season?
That looks delicious! The colour of the filling is so inviting!
One of my favorite pies is brie cheese with pears and caramel sauce. Of course apple pie is always near the top of my list too…with apple pie though I usually prefer cooking the apples in butter a little bit before throwing them inside the crust.
What pie are you planning to make next?
Can you freeze a baked strawberry rhubarb pie?
Trish–Thank you for reading my blog. It’s always nice to know that I am not just writing to my self. =)
That’s a very good question you have. I’ve never tried to freeze a strawberry rhubarb pie, nor for any other pie before, because i do prefer the freshness of the just-out-of-oven taste. I assume it’s doable, but since the filling of this pie uses tapioca to hold the liquid, defrosting might make causes extra liquid to come out, which i suppose is not so desirable. I think frozen pie is more suitable for meat pies rather than fruit pie. Hope this is helpful for you.
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This takes me back to childhood-thank you for posting the recipe. I love rhubarb! I haven’t had it since I was very young.
I linked back to your recipe in a blog I posted.