Strawberry Rhubarb Crumb Pie – a Delightful Dessert

It is the start of local strawberry season and rhubarb is plentiful right now so this was a perfect pairing for adaptation to a gluten free pie recipe. This is an easy pie to construct and you can store any leftover crumb mixture in a sealed container in the fridge; it keeps a few weeks. The GF crust will work for any pie and the GF crumb topping is perfect for any crumb pie. If you prefer a solid crust just double the crust part and top your pie with it. Be sure to cut some slits for steam escape!

I have a second oven; I call it the pizza oven which I use mostly to bake pies in; it has only bottom heat. This gives my crust the chance to get properly browned without overcooking the rest of the pie. If you use a regular oven you might want to prebake your empty gf crust for 10 minutes to give it a head start so it doesn’t get underbaked. If you are making this pie with regular flour; just sub in for the gf blend and bake it as I describe below. I made this pie before I went gf and if you are a gluten gluten you can still enjoy the berry goodness of this late spring themed pie.

Please make every effort to use local strawberries; you can get them at most farm stands, farmer’s markets and at Lehigh Valley Produce on Main Street in Hellertown. I got mine at Lehigh Valley Produce; very flavorful and in prime condition. This pie really showcases the strawberries more than the rhubarb which is a silent partner so that is why I suggest you get the best; locally grown sweet ripe strawberries to make your pie’s flavor just perfect.

Bake and enjoy early summer in a pie from just a few minutes of work. Don’t eat it hot; it should be cooled to room temperature or even chilled. I am guessing you could top this with vanilla ice cream. Maybe next time!

Angie’s GF Strawberry Rhubarb Crumb Pie

Crust:

1 c plus 2 tbsp brown rice flour mix (at bottom of recipe)

2 tbsp sweet rice flour

1 Tbps. granulated sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

¼ tsp salt

6 Tbps. cold butter cut into 6 chunks

1 lg egg

2 tsp fresh orange or lemon juice

Directions:

Spray 9 inch metal pie pan with cooking spray, dust with white rice flour.

Filling:

2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and cut in thick slices

2 cups cut up fresh rhubarb – place in medium bowl

Mix with

½ to 2/3 cup sugar ( I used ½ cup but I guess some like things really sweet so I gave a range of sugar amounts.)

1/3 c gluten free flour mix (see below recipe or use any you like: I actually used a mock Better Batter flour for this pie filling.)

1 egg (can be left out if you wish)

Roll out pie crust in a pie bag or between the two sheets of wax paper, try to get the thickness even, no thick middle! Peel off one side of paper and place in pie pan, centered. Remove other slice of wax paper. Crimp edges all around. Fill with dry strawberry – rhubarb mixture. Beat egg in a small bowl and pour over. Top with crumbs.

Crumb topping

¾ c brown rice flour mix

½ c sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

1/3 c cold butter cut into six chunks

Put all four ingredients in the same mixing bowl you made the bottom crust in and mix well with mixer paddle until crumbs form.

Sprinkle the top of the pie with crumb mix; use as much as you like. I like about ½ to 2/3 of the mixture. Up to your personal taste… It sinks partially into the fruit mixture and adds lots of sweetness and eye appeal.

Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 40-45 minutes until bubbly and the crust is light brown. Cool at least 2 to 4 hours before serving at room temperature.

Brown Rice Flour Mix

2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour

Rhubarb Crumb Pie…A Spring Treat

Rhubarb is getting plentiful so it can be a good choice for your first gluten free pie recipe. You can buy it fresh at your local farmer’s market. The Hellertown Farmers Market opened today; up at their new location; the field right next to the Hellertown Area Library. I bet there was some rhubarb to be had! They are there every Sunday until November from 9 am to 1 pm. There is free off street parking available. Get there early before all the good stuff is sold!

This is an easy pie even though it has several steps. It is different from the usual rhubarb pie because the texture is a bit closer to a crumb cake, no wet, faintly slimy texture and no ultra sour flavor. I think this new version tastes as good as it did when I made it with wheat based flour.

This GF crust will work for any pie you wish and the GF crumb topping is great for any crumb pie topper. I store any leftover crumb mixture in a sealed container in the fridge; keeps a few weeks. What I am giving you is my mixture of three recipes with some small modifications over time – it was my first GF pie recipe, from nearly two years ago. I know it has several steps but each one is easy and you can use these crust and crumb recipes for other pies.

Yes, this is a re-run post but it is so good that I knew some of you who are new to my blog might want to see it. Bake and enjoy!

Angie’s GF Rhubarb Crumb Pie

Crust:

1 c plus 2 tbsp brown rice flour mix (at bottom of recipe)

2 tbsp sweet rice flour

1 Tbsp. granulated sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

¼ tsp salt

6 Tbsp. cold butter cut into 6 chunks

1 large egg

2 tsp fresh orange or lemon juice

Spray 9 inch metal pie pan with cooking spray, dust with white rice flour.

Filling:

44 to 4.5 cups cut up fresh rhubarb – place in medium bowl

Mix with

2/3 – 1 c sugar (as much as you like; I use the lesser amount)

¼ c brown rice flour mix (see below recipe)

½ tsp nutmeg

Sprinkle – up to 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Roll out pie crust between the two sheets of wax paper, try to get the thickness even, no thick middle! Peel off one side of paper and place in pie pan, centered. Remove other slice of wax paper. Crimp edges all around. Fill with dry rhubarb mix. Pour evenly over this mixture: 3 eggs beaten lightly with 1/3 c milk (not skim), and ¼ tsp almond extract.

Crumb topping

Put all four ingredients in the same mixing bowl you made the bottom crust in and mix well with mixer paddle until crumbs form.

¾ c brown rice flour mix

½ c sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

1/3 c cold butter cut into six chunks

Sprinkle the top of the pie with crumb mix; use as much as you like. I like about 2/3 of the mixture. Up to your personal taste… It sinks into the rhubarb and wet mixture to create an almost cake like texture and the crumb crust adds lots of sweetness and eye appeal.

Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 55-60 minutes until bubbly and the crust is light brown. Cool at least 2 to 4 hours before serving at room temperature.

Brown Rice Flour Mix
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour

Cherry Sunrise Pie for Easter

Next Sunday is Easter, the day of baked ham, chocolate candy eggs which I can’t eat and brightly colored eggs to hide for the three year old to find. I want our lunch dessert to be special yet not too heavy or fattening. I want an attractive pie, with fruit in it and was hoping to make something easy. I plan to have my cherry sunrise pie again; it was a big hit last Easter.

It has to have a gluten free crust for me but if you are making it for the wheat eating public there are ready made crusts out there that will make this so simple. Frey’s Better Foods and Wegmans both have gf. graham cracker crust all ready to fill; so convenient.

I like this in the spring when there isn’t much fresh fruit available to make a decent pie. You could make it the night before or early in the morning. I will post a picture of an individual slice this Easter when we enjoy it for lunch dessert; we gobbled it all down last year before I thought of taking a picture of just one slice.

Cherry Sunrise Pie

One pie crust: bought ready-made or DIY. I make mine from an 8 oz box of gluten free graham crackers crushed and mixed with 1/3 cup melted butter and pressed gently into a 9 inch pie pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 9 or 10 minutes. Let cool completely before filling. You can make it a day ahead of time to shorten the work of putting together the actual pie.

Ingredients for filling

18 or 19 oz can of crushed pineapple in own juice

1 21 oz can of cherry pie filling

1 8 oz pkg light cream cheese, room temp.

½ tsp vanilla

1 cup heavy cream

¼ cup powdered sugar

Directions

Drain the pineapple for 20 min; save the juice! I used my microwave to gently warm the cream cheese. I unwrapped it and placed the cold slab on a small plate and warmed it on a very low heat until supple and smooth. Dump in a mixing bowl, add 2 tbsp pineapple juice, the vanilla, 1/3 cup crushed pineapple, ½ cup cherry pie filling. If you are smart you will mostly use the goopy stuff and not too many cherries. Save them for on top! Next, stir this all together really well.

Then whip the chilled heavy cream in a separate bowl with an electric mixer until soft peaks form, add powdered sugar and mix well with the mixer; be careful not to over beat it. If it gets clumpy you went too far. Fold this into the cream cheese mix until it isn’t streaky with white areas.

Gently spoon the filling into the pie shell, spread it out to fill the entire bottom. I used a spoonula (blend of spoon and spatula) and smooth the top with a flat cake spatula. I like to leave a sort of tiny ridge on the outer edge to keep the pineapple from spilling out onto the crust. Then carefully pour the rest of the cherry pie filling in the center spreading it to cover ¾ of the top from the center out. Finally, use a spoon to put clumps of pineapple around the outer rim of the cherry filling. Chill at least 2 hours, preferably 4. Cut and slice. No adornments are needed.

It has a light fluffy consistency and it isn’t that sweet. Great to top off a big meal; not too filling and the fresh fruity taste is a spring treat. Try it soon and you will be giving the recipe out afterwards!

Lemon Meringue Pie Heaven

This pie is old school delicious. This is my mom’s bastardized version of a Betty Crocker recipe and made gluten free with my favorite crust. It has no gelatin for you gel haters! I make it with the lesser amount of sugar in the filling but you can more than double it if you are a sweet freak. I have never met a man who didn’t love it, well…maybe one. My friend Russel doesn’t care for anything with lemons. But his wife Claire adores lemon so this pie is for her and Mom…and my brother Christopher who often requests this pie when he is in town.

If I have them, I always use Meyer lemons for this recipe. Your pie will have a delicate flavor – so light I sometimes call it lemon cloud pie! Don’t worry; regular lemons work just fine. It can be difficult to find Meyer lemons and pricy too.

I have never gotten my mom to admit it but I am positive she added extra egg whites to her meringue. Her pie was towering with the white fluffy stuff unlike my nearly level pie made with just three whites. It is up to you how impressive you want your dessert to look. But if you have company you might want to go for the big bang of a four- five egg white meringue topping for maximum wow power!

My mom added the corn syrup to replace some of the reduced sugar and because it makes the texture of this pie creamier and more delicate. Don’t make this pie on a very humid day or the meringue will weep and bead on the top. It will taste fine but the look will suffer from the humidity.

Store any leftover pie in the fridge. It doesn’t keep more than two days but frankly none of it ever lasts more than two days.

Thickened cornstarch, sugar and water mix all stirred up.

Baked pie crust.

Mom’s Lemon Meringue Pie

Crust:

1 c plus 2 tbsp brown rice flour mix (at bottom of recipe)

2 tbsp sweet rice flour

1 Tbps. granulated sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

¼ tsp salt

6 Tbps. cold butter cut into 6 chunks

1 lg egg

2 tsp fresh orange or lemon juice

—————

Spray 9 inch metal pie pan with cooking spray, dust with white rice flour.

Mix dry ingredients in bowl of stand electric mixer. Add butter and mix until crumbly and resembling coarse meal. Add egg and juice. Mix until it comes together into big chunks. Shape into a ball with your hands. Put it on a crust sized piece of wax paper (14 x 14 inches more or less), flatten the crust ball some; put on top of it another piece of wax paper and chill it all in your fridge 15-20 minutes. Then roll it out and line a 9 inch pie pan with it. Make sure you get the middle nice and thin; this crust can be tough to get the center as thin as the edges. Prick it all over with a fork to keep it from bubbling out and bake the empty crust at 375 for 10-12 minutes until light brown. Let cool to room temperature.

Lemon Filling:

Ingredients:

1/3 to ¾ cup sugar

1/3 plus 1 tbsp. corn starch

1 ½ cup water

3 eggs, separated; yolks for filling, save whites for meringue

3 tbsp. butter cut in small chunks

2 tsp. lemon zest

½ cup fresh lemon juice

2-3 tbsp. clear corn syrup

Directions:

Start oven heating to 400 degrees for browning the topped pie.

Mix the sugar and corn starch in a heavy bottomed medium sized saucepan. Add the water, stirring. Heat until it boils, stirring constantly, boil one minute, take off heat. Beat yolks briefly in a small mixing bowl, then add the hot stuff slowly to it; half the hot mixture, stirring constantly. Then dump it all back into the saucepan, bring to a boil, stir like a crazy person so it doesn’t scorch. Boil 1 minute at medium heat. Remove from heat and stir in the butter. Let it melt as you stir. And then stir in the lemon juice and zest. Glug in some corn syrup. Pour the hot lemon filling into the pie crust. Top while still hot with the meringue you just beat up. Make sure you get the meringue all the way across the top and along every single edge. No cracks, no gaps. Bake it 10-11 minutes until light brown. Cool to room temperature (avoid drafts while it cools) and then chill your masterpiece for 2-6 hours. Slice and serve. Makes six-seven lovely slices.

This slice is from the second day; we were in a feeding frenzy and forgot to take a picture when the pie was cut and served. It is a tad weepy from the passage of time.

Meringue topping

three egg whites (or 4-5)

¼ tsp. cream of tarter (or 1/2 tsp)

6 tbsp. granulated sugar (or 8-10 tbsp.)

Directions:

Beat the three whites and the cream of tarter until it is past the foamy stage, add the sugar half a tbsp. at a time beating on high until the whites are stiff and glossy. This will take several minutes.

If you add one or two extra egg whites add another ¼ tsp. cream of tarter and add 2 tbsp. sugar for each extra white.

—————–

Brown Rice Flour Mix (same as King Arthur blend)
2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour

Awesome Apple Pear Crumb Pie

Pie has always been a classic holiday dessert. But sometimes we want something a bit different for our company. Maybe, right now you are frantically looking for an alternative to pumpkin pie or apple pie; they seem kinda now what you want this Thanksgiving. Look no further, apple pear caramel crumb pie to the rescue!

cortland apples

bosc pears

Fresh tasting, locally sourced fruits are exactly in the spirit of Thanksgiving. The apple is the predominant flavor but the pear adds sweetness and its special flavor. The sugars, spices and lemon peel create a yummy caramely sauce. It is not that really cloyingly sweet caramel of most sauces; just enough sweetness to tease your palate.

This pie is fantastic with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. I even tried a slice with some sharp cheddar in the British pie tradition; it was nice but I really like it best all alone, so the delicate fruit and spices show their winning flavors.

apple pear pie, squash, chicken and dumplings 019

Not the prettiest slice: I am terrible at cutting a piece without destroying the shape!

This recipe is a blending of my own pie filling and the pie crust and crumb recipes from Annalise Robert’s cookbook, Gluten-Free Baking Classics. I used less sugar, more fruit, and made a few other changes to create my own special pie using apples and pears. Her cookbook is a fabulous resource and I can’t recommend it enough to anyone trying to bake gluten free for a family member. There is nothing like the classic desserts that we traditionally enjoy at celebrations and feasts to comfort a celiac who can’t eat what they used to.

Angie’s GF Apple Pear Crumb Pie

Crust:

1 c plus 2 tbsp brown rice flour mix (at bottom of recipe)

2 tbsp sweet rice flour

1 Tbps. granulated sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

¼ tsp salt

6 Tbps. cold butter cut into 6 chunks

1 lg egg

2 tsp fresh orange or lemon juice

Spray 9 inch metal pie pan with cooking spray, dust with white rice flour.

Mix dry ingredients in bowl of stand electric mixer. Add butter and mix until crumbly and resembling coarse meal. Add egg and juice. Mix until it comes together into big chunks. Shape into a ball with your hands. Put it on a crust sized piece of wax paper (14 x 14 inches more or less), flatten the crust ball some; put on top of it another piece of wax paper and chill it all in your fridge 15-20 minutes while you chop the peeled and cored fruit into ¼ to 1/3 inch slices. I use my plastic pie bag; sturdy and helps me roll the crust thin in the middle.

Filling:

5 cups peeled, cored, and thin sliced cooking apples (4 big apples)

2 cups (2 large pears) bosc pears; peeled, cored, and sliced thin – place in medium bowl

Mix the following in a small bowl and pour over the sliced apples and pears:

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

2 tbsp. tapioca flour

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. grated or zested lemon peel (I zested)

Roll out pie crust between the two sheets of wax paper; try to get the thickness even, no thick middle! Peel off one side of paper and place in pie pan, centered. Remove other slice of wax paper. Crimp edges all around. Fill with sweetened fruit mix. Sprinkle the lemon peel evenly over top and pour the crumb topping (1 to 1½ cup) evenly over this mixture. The more crumbs the thicker the crust they will form; for a really thick crust use all the crumbs from the recipe below.

If you love your pie really sweet add another ¼ cup granulated sugar to the dry mix part of the filling. I found the pie to be plenty sweet but everyone has their own sweetness level.

Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 30 minutes with a piece of aluminum foil on top of the pie, then 30 more minutes uncovered until bubbly and the crust is light brown. I put a pie guard underneath my pie while it bakes to catch any drips. Cool at least 2 hours before serving at room temperature.

Note: I bake pies in my bottom heat pizza oven and it gives me a great browned crust. If your oven isn’t bottom heat you might want to pre-bake the crust 10 minutes before filling and topping the fruit.

Crumb topping

Put all four ingredients in the same mixing bowl you made the bottom crust in and mix well with mixer paddle until crumbs form.

¾ c brown rice flour mix

½ c granulated sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

1/3 c cold butter cut into six chunks

Brown Rice Flour Mix (same as King Arthur’s gf flour mix)

2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca flour

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My World Without Wheat

My World Without Wheat by Angela E. Drake continues here

pie

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumb Pie – a Delightful Dessert

Rhubarb Crumb Pie…A Spring Treat

Cherry Sunrise Pie for Easter

Lemon Meringue Pie Heaven

Awesome Apple Pear Crumb Pie