This past weekend I had attended a beautiful wedding.  Right in my house, rhubarb and strawberry had joined their fates and I could not be more happy for the pair.  And what a pair they made.  The sweet and sour notes complemented each other so perfectly, so innocently, so surprisingly. Nestled under a buttery blanket of dough and finished with a cooling drizzle of heavy cream, rhubarb and strawberry could not be treated with any more love.

Last night while eating the leftover bits of this pie I was very pleasantly reminded of “The Pie Hole.” I’m talking about the fictional yet mouth-watering pie shop featured on the sadly cancelled  ABC show called “Pushing Daisies”.  Ned made it seem so easy and so much fun to own a pie shop.  And I have to say owning a pie shop is, for some reason, more appealing to me than owning a cupcake shop. I love cupcakes but somehow pies are just a little closer to my heart.

Now back to reality. The craving for a strawberry rhubarb deep dish pie came from the blog dessertsforbreakfast.com.  The photography is amazing on this blog and the definition of the saying “you eat with your eyes first”.  I was very impressed with the blue-barb-berry deep dish pie, so I decided to put my own spin on this recipe. Here is the recipe:

Strawberry and Rhubarb Deep Dish Pie:

Pulse 2 cups flour, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 1 tsp. sugar together in a food processor. Add 2/3 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Pour, while the food processor is on low speed, 5-6 tbsp very cold water over the mixture ,1 tbsp. at a time. Stop the food processor when the dough begins to hold together. Do not overmix.  Take out the dough and cut into one bigger piece and one smaller piece. Wrap in a plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour or up to 1 day.

Butter a 9 inch removable springform pan. Preheat oven to 400F. Remove the bigger piece of dough from the fridge and roll out to about 1/8 inch thickness and a couple of inches bigger than the pan being used. Place dough into the pan making sure the dough reaches all the way to the top of the pan.  Put back into the fridge while you prepare the filling.

To prepare the filling, combine 2 1/2 cups rhubarb chopped into 1/2 inch chunks, 1 lbs. strawberries hulled and chopped in quarters, zest and juice of 1 medium lemon, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, and 4 tbsp. corn starch in a bowl.  Spoon the filling into the pie crust without the juices.  Drizzle 3-4 tbsp. of the juices over the pie.

Take the smaller dough ball out of the fridge.  Roll the dough out and make lattice strips.  Top the pie with the strips of pastry.  Fold the curst edges over to hide the ends of the strips of pastry. Whisk together 1 small egg yolk, and 1 tbsp. heavy cream. Brush the egg mixture lightly over the lattice crust and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

Bake the pie for about 45 minutes. When the top starts to get brown place a piece of aluminum foil over the pie and continue to bake until the rhubarb is soft. Remove  and let cool at room temperature. Serve with a drizzle of heavy cream.