I love the combination of strawberry & rhubarb, I find it simply mouth watering. The whole combination of Sour Cream Bitsa pastry, vanilla, strawberry, rhubarb with just a hint of ginger was so very moreish - I kept on trimming this pie when no one was looking.

This recipe was designed specifically to be made with Bakers' Magic gluten free flour. The finished baked product will not be the same if you use another gluten free flour and you will need to adjust the recipe, particularly if the flour you're using contains rice flour. 

 

Ingredients

1 quantity of Sour Cream Bitsa pastry

300 - 350 g Rhubarb

500 g Hulled strawberries

1 Vanilla bean

100 g Honey

150 g Caster sugar

2 - 5 g Grated ginger (optional)

20 g Maize starch

30 g Water

 

Extra

egg with a bit of salt for brushing pastry

raw or demerara sugar

Method

Cut the rhubarb into 5 cm pieces & put them into a largish saucepan. 

Hull & halve 300 g of the strawberries, put them in with the rhubarb.

Slice the vanilla bean lengthwise & put it in with the strawberries & rhubarb.

Add in the honey & sugar and stir to coat the fruit with the sugar.

Place saucepan over gentle heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Increase the heat & boil mix for 5 minutes. Take it off the heat.

Make a paste with the maize starch & water. While stirring the fruit mixture add in the maize starch paste/slurry (it should thicken very quickly).

Add in the ginger (to taste - it can be strong so start with a little) and the remaining hulled & halved strawberries.

Take out the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds out & stir the seeds back into the mix. 

Turn oven on to 180 C (fan forced). 

Prepare the Sour Cream Bitza pastry. If you want a quick pie (rustic looking) roll out the pastry into a circular shape big enough to cover your pie dish & overlap the sides. Line the pie dish with the pastry & put the fruit mix into it. Bring the sides of the pastry up & fold/scrunch it together - see photo below. 

Making the pie this way is so easy & quick. One downside is that the folds of pastry will not be as flaky. 

Another way to make the pie is to line the pie dish, put the filling in & then put on a top. The top could be a lattice (photo below) or a complete top. 

Brush the top of the pastry with the egg & sprinkle on the raw sugar.

Bake in the oven for ~35-45 mins. The time will depend on your oven, how hot the filling was when the pie went into the oven, the thickness of the pastry & the shape of the pie.

Serve with cream and/or ice-cream.

Simply enjoy!