Icebox strawberry pie

Recipe from Cook's Country, a subscription website owned by Cooks Illustrated.

In step 1, it is imperative that the cooked strawberry mixture measures 2 cups; any more and the filling will be loose. If your fresh berries aren’t fully ripe, you may want to add extra sugar to taste in step 2. Use your favorite pie dough or use our recipe (related). Chill the heavy cream in step 4 to help it whip more quickly.

Filling

• 2 pounds frozen strawberries
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup sugar
• Pinch salt
• 1 pound fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced thin
• 1 (9-inch) pie shell, baked and cooled (see no-fear pie crust)

Topping

• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup heavy cream

1. COOK FROZEN BERRIES -- Cook frozen berries in large saucepan over medium-low heat until berries begin to release juice, about 3 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring frequently, until thick and jamlike, about 25 minutes (mixture should measure 2 cups).

2. ADD GELATIN -- Combine lemon juice, water, and gelatin in small bowl. Let stand until gelatin is softened and mixture has thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir gelatin mixture, sugar, and salt into cooked berry mixture and return to simmer, about 2 minutes. Transfer to bowl and cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes.

3. ADD FRESH BERRIES -- Fold fresh berries into filling. Spread evenly in pie shell and refrigerate until set, about 4 hours. (Filled pie can be refrigerated for 24 hours.)

4. MAKE TOPPING -- With electric mixer on medium speed, beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until smooth, about 30 seconds. With mixer running, add cream and whip until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes. Serve pie with whipped cream topping.

Notes

Filling

The cooked down frozen berries are a rather unappealing muddy color, which detracts from the lovely red of the fresh sliced strawberries. I was not as vigilant as Cooks Country would have me be about the 2-cup measurement; I'd say the mixture was about 2-1/8 cups. Perhaps reduced even further, it would act more as a binding agent for the fresh berries and less as a muddied swamp surrounding the fresh berries.

Topping

Unless you have a stand mixer, or an electric mixer that has a whisk attachment (preferably a balloon whisk) and whose "low" setting actually is slow, I would argue for doing this by hand. Using an inferior Black & Decker electric mixer, the cream cheese remained lumpy, and the whip cream hardly billowy. Not very appetizing looking. Next time, I will use a spatula to beat the cream cheese until smooth, then stir in the sugar and vanilla. I will then whisk the cream with a balloon whisk in separate bowl until stiff peaks form. Then I will fold it into the cream cheese mixture.

Variations

• Gourmet has a recipe for Fresh Strawberry Pie that's much simpler than the above recipe. The crust is basically a variation on a graham cracker crust, and the filling requires no cooking, which probably means that there's no jam flavor to the pie. And more importantly (because who doesn't like strawberry jam?), the color of the filling is probably actually as bright as the photo shows. However, the recipe also calls for what could possibly be a large amount of water, and this could detract from the big strawberry taste that the Cook's Country version purports to offer.