A gluten free cream pie I made a couple of days ago, with a hint of lemon + topped with a basic cream cheese frosting (it’s such an amazing combo, seriously) and strawberries. ???
As much as I love baking, I always try to create gluten free desserts that taste great, but are also as simple as possible to make. And cream pie is a perfect example of that. The filling is just pastry cream; if you’ve never made it from scratch, it only takes a few minutes, no more, and simply uses basic ingredients that everyone generally has lying around the kitchen (milk, butter, eggs, sugar, cornflour). And the frosting is literally just plain cream cheese with icing sugar. ?
The only thing that takes a bit of effort is the shortcrust pastry (I made this one using Doves Farm gluten free flour btw), but you could always save time by buying one pre-made. Sometimes I even skip rolling the dough altogether and just squish the pastry into the pie dish with my hands. Hey, if it works it works. ?
Gluten Free Cream Pie Recipe:
- 150g all purpose gluten free flour blend (I used Doves Farm)
- 25g granulated sugar
- ⅛ tsp salt
- 70g butter
- 1 egg
- 1 egg white (to brush over the pie crust)
- 320g whole milk
- 80g sugar
- 20g cornflour
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 heaped Tbsp butter
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Optional: lemon zest (1 whole lemon)
- Cream cheese frosting (plain cream cheese + icing sugar)
- Strawberries
COOKING TEMPERATURE: 190C (375F)
BAKING INSTRUCTIONS:
10-15 mins (for the pie crust alone)
+
12-15 mins (with the pastry cream filling)
REFRIGERATE (to let it set): a couple of hours or overnight
Directions
Prepare the pie crust / shortcrust pastry:
- Mix the flour, sugar, and salt together in a bowl.
- Add the butter (cold, straight out of the fridge) and mix with your hands until you reach a crumb like texture.
- Add an egg and mix with a spoon until the dough starts to come together and then wet your hands slightly (to prevent sticking) and knead the dough until you reach a smooth ball.
- The pastry will be pretty sticky and unmanageable at this point so wrap it up in cling film and place in the freezer for 30 minutes to make it more solid.
- Take it out of the freezer, dust some flour over your work surface as well as on top of your pastry dough and carefully roll it out.
- Grease a pie dish and transfer the rolled pastry into it, pressing it gently into the pan and around the edges with your fingers, trimming off any excess dough that sticks out. Note: a good trick to transfer the rolled dough without it breaking apart is to roll it loosely around your rolling pin (as in the pictures above) and unroll it over the pie dish.
- Prick the bottom of your pie with a fork (to prevent it from rising too much).
- Brush some egg white all over it with a pastry brush. This creates a barrier between the pie crust and the filling to prevent it from going soggy. Note: seeing as we need egg yolks for the pastry cream filling, separate your eggs and keep the yolks aside for the filling and the whites for this step. ?
Prepare the pastry cream:
- Combine the milk and half of the sugar in a saucepan.
- In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks with the other half of the sugar as well as the cornflour and vanilla.
- Bring the milk to a light simmer on medium/low heat, stirring constantly with a whisk.
- The pour a bit of the warm milk into the bowl and mix well, then pour the content back in to the pan.
- Keep cooking on medium/low heat, whisking constantly, until the sauce starts to thicken. This should take about 1 minute.
- Then turn the heat off and stir tablespoon of butter into it until fully melted.
- Optional: you can grate a bit of lemon zest to add a little kick to the flavour.
Bake the pie:
- Pre-heat the oven to 190C (375F).
- Bake the pie crust alone for 10-15 minutes until it starts to turn very slightly golden.
- Then pour the freshly cooked pastry cream into it and cook for another 15 minutes or until the fillings starts to set and the crust becomes golden.
- Take it out of the oven and let it cool down completely.
- Then wrap it in cling film and leave it in the fridge to set for a couple of hours or overnight.
- Serve with cream cheese frosting and strawberries on top! ?
