Original Strawberry Pie with fresh strawberries and blueberries - German Strawberry Pie Recipe

Homemade German style Strawberry Pie

Growing up in Germany our family used to make lots of fruit pies and  used fresh food for desserts. One of my favorites always was the  Strawberry Pie.  Loved it with fresh whipping cream. It was a fast to make recipe which my  mom and grandma used to  make not only on special occasions, but just for daily consumption. In German coffee and cake is an institution and there is lots of bakery cafe shops where  until  this day people would meet at lunch time or simply for  social purpose and have some  bakery items or fresh cake. Strawberry being one of the favorite ones , if fresh strawberries are  available.

The following is the recipe our family used to make and still makes on a regular base. You can never go wrong with that.

Ingredients

Dough:

6 oz. butter

8 oz. all purpose flour

4 oz. sugar

1 Package Vanilla sugar (= 2 teaspoons)

2 teaspoons baking powder

Topping:

1 pound fresh strawberries

Handful of blueberries (you also can use strawberries only - then yous need about 1.5 pounds of strawberries),

Clear Glaze

Heavy whipping cream for decoration 

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 370°F.

2. Prepare a Quiche or pie crust pan (11 inch) with butter. The pan should be buttered completely, bottom and sides. It works best to use a baking brush for buttering the pan.  Make sure the butter is not right out of the refrigerator so you can spread it easily.

3. Put all ingredients for the dough in a big bowl and knead with your hands a shortcrust. The dough should not be sticky. Use a little more flour if the dough is too sticky. You also should cover your hands with a little flour while kneading - so the dough does not get stuck on your hands and fingers.

Press the shortcrust carefully in the prepared quiche or pie crust pan. Bake the cake in the oven middle for about 15 minutes or until golden brown (should not take longer than 20 minutes).

4. While the dough is baking in the oven clean the fruits and cut the strawberries in half.

5. When the dough is done put it on a rack to cool down for about 20 minutes. Do not try to take it out of the form to early because it breaks easily. Take it out of the form after it has cooled down completely and place the berries as shown below. .

6. Prepare the glaze as described on the package. Normally you only need to mix the content of the package with 2 tablespoons of sugar and stir the mixture in 1 cup cold water or fruit juice. Bring to boil and let boil over medium heat for 1 minute.  Cool for 1 minute, then spoon glaze evenly over berries.

7. You can decorate the cake with whipping cream as shown or create your own pattern.

You can prepare the dough  without topping a day earlier and even  freeze it until you need it. That means you can prepare more than one in advance and use it on the day of a bigger event just topping it with the fruit and whipping cream.

This  cake is prepared really fast. I normally need no longer than 30 minutes all together without cooling time for the dough. Usually we have simple coffee with that. But you can have pretty much anything you like with it. I also like cold milk with it. But coffee is the number 1 choice.

Enjoy the cake and write us with any questions.

Tip:

You can prepare your own vanilla sugar. Simply fill a clean, dry and empty glass with a lid with regular fine sugar and put three or four vanilla beans in it and let sit for a week. Ready to use vanilla sugar.