Sweet Summertime Strawberry Icebox Pie Recipe

Nothing says summer like the sweet taste of fresh, ripe strawberries. While I love the idea of eating seasonally, sometimes you just need the taste of summer a little early. That’s the way I’ve been feeling after a cold front and days of thunderstorms. It was actually the kids’ idea! Strawberries were on sale this week, and we had extra, so we made an old-fashioned Strawberry Icebox Pie, completely by scratch. I’m really looking forward to fresh strawberries in the summer. We have a pick-your-own farm in our area, and this year I’m trying my hand at growing our own strawberries also.

The Crust

The first step in the process is the homemade pie crust, of course. If you’d like to skip this step, a refrigerated store-bought pie crust is certainly a fine substitution, but I’ve discovered that homemade is a five minute process that always yields superior results. It’s simply worth it! I use food processor to make quick work of this step. All you need to do is combine the flour, salt, and cold cubed butter into the food processor and pulse it until the butter is pea-sized and the mixture looks a bit crumbly. Then add in the water. For this recipe, I only add about 3 Tbsp to begin with, and pulse the dough again. You want it to come together and form a dough ball, but you will likely need that last 1 Tbsp the recipe calls for, and maybe a bit more. Don’t add too much, though. The dough will be too sticky.

Once the dough ball has formed, turn out the dough onto a floured surface and divide in two. This recipe does make two pie crusts, so you’ll want to reserve the other one in the refrigerator, or in the freezer if you don’t intend to use within the next few days. Just wrap it up in plastic wrap or in an airtight container first. Roll one pie crust into a circle, using flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin and the counter. Place the crust into a 9 inch pie plate, and pinch the edge of the crust. You may need to trim it first. You’ll want to bake this before putting the filling in, as this is a refrigerated pie that needs to chill to set, so the filling never needs to go in the oven.

To pre-bake this crust, you’ll need to use some sort of weight to keep the crust from puffing up and then deflating, which can cause shrinking and make a mess of your crust. I like to line the crust with parchment paper and pour in uncooked beans or rice into it to weigh it down. Bake at 375ºF for 15 minutes, or until the edges are starting to brown and set. Remove the pie crust from the oven and carefully take out the parchment paper and whatever weights you used. At this point you need to dock the bottom of the pie crust with a fork (docking is poking holes all over the bottom so it doesn’t bubble up). Return the pie crust to the oven for about 15 more minutes to fully bake. You’ll want to let this cool off a bit while you make the filling.

The Filling

The filling for this pie is thicken and then sets up firm in the refrigerator, kind of like a jelly. In fact, my 4-year-old tasted it and then went to the fridge and got out the Strawberry jam and said, “It taste like this!” Yes, it’s very similar! Start by cutting all the strawberries. You can slice them or quarter them, or make them larger or smaller based on your preference. Just make sure to discard the tops. You just want the sweet red parts. Set half of the berries aside. These will be the chunks of fresh fruit inside the fillings. The other half will go into a saucepan and be cooked down to the thick filling we all associate with a good fruit pies. To do that, add 1 cup of sugar to the strawberries and heat on medium heat. The sugar will pull out the juices from the berries, breaking them down and softening them in the process. After a few minutes, you’ll want to add in a corn starch slurry to the filling to thicken it. A slurry is water and corn starch whisked together in a bowl. The benefit of using a slurry is that it will dissolve evenly into your mixture, whether fruit filling or gravy. If you added the corn starch directly to the filling (or a gravy), the powder would clump up, which is less than desirable to say the least! Stir in the slurry and continue heating the filling until it thickens (keep stirring!). This will take a few minutes.

At this point you will place the raw strawberries into the cooled pie crust, then pour the cooked filling over the top of them. Place the pie into the refrigerator (aka: the icebox) for at least 3 hours to chill and set up. Don’t make the mistake of cutting it too early or your filling will be runny! Pro tip: if you really want to prevent yourself from cheating and cutting it too early, make this in the evening, put it in the fridge to chill overnight, and GO TO BED!

The Whipped Cream

Homemade whipped cream is so easy and quick to make, that you’ll never want to go back to that aerosol spray can ever again! Plus it’s just 3 simple ingredients: cream, sugar, and vanilla extract. Have you seen the ingredients in the spray cans?

Eww. Why would we want to use this when its so easy to make a clean version? I will admit to buying processed foods on occasion out of pure convenience, but whipped cream is not one of them! Even before I learned about clean foods, this was one food I couldn’t stand because the mouth feel with canned “dairy whipped topping” (they can’t even technically call it “whipped cream”) was gross to me. It felt like my tongue and the roof of my mouth were coated with a layer of grease. I always avoided whipped cream and even said for most of my life, “I can’t stand whipped cream” because I had never had REAL whipped cream. I might be embarrassed to tell you that after I made this batch of whipped cream, I *may or may not* have eaten it by the spoonful! Hypothetically. I’m not admitting anything.

Pour the heavy whipping cream into a stand mixer bowl and attach the whisk attachment. Beat the cream on a medium speed for a few minutes until it thickens slightly. I used speed 6.

When it looks like this, it’s time to add the sugar and the vanilla extract. You can certainly do this to taste. I would start off with a 1/2 tsp of vanilla and 1/4 cup of sugar to 1 cup of cream. Beat that in just for a minute, and taste. Is it sweet enough for your liking? No? Add another tablespoon of sugar.

After only a couple minutes or so, the cream should look like this. Now understand, this texture you see if a stiff peak consistency, and is the most you would want to mix your cream. The next step if you continue to beat it will be butter! You can stop before it gets this thick, at a medium peak consistency. But I personally love a nice thick cream. Make sure you DO NOT LEAVE the stand mixer while making whipped cream! It take just a few minutes, and if you go too long you will hear the sound of liquid splashing all over the counter as the cream separates into butter and buttermilk.

Once your whipped cream is the consistency you like, you can do one of two things. Either top the pie with the cream, or spoon the cream into a bowl so that people can choose how much they want to put on their slice of pie. I sadly have children who actually DON’T LIKE whipped cream. Whose children are these, anyway?! Haha! That being said, we leave the cream separate so that everyone can enjoy their Strawberry Icebox Pie they way they like it. It is a refreshing, sweet, summer pie that your family will ask for again and again.