Mix dry ingredients, cut in butter with fork or pastry blender. Add milk to beaten egg and stir into butter mixture. Divide dough into two equal parts and, on a floured surface, roll each half out to the size of 8-inch round cake pan. Place one round into greased cake pan, spread with the melted butter, and put second round on top.
Bake at 450 degrees for 12 minutes or until golden brown.
Separate the two layers with a fork and put one layer on a serving plate. Spread evenly with 1/3 of the strawberries and whipped cream. Place remaining layer on top and add remaining 2/3 berries and whipped cream.
My Note: Mom, who never skimped on rich ingredients and sometimes spread additional soft butter on the bottom baked shortcake layer, before adding strawberries and cream.
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According to Captain John Smith, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, mulberries, and other varieties of wild fruit grew abundantly in this country when the first English settlers landed. Eaten fresh or stewed, these versatile fruits were dried or made into jams, jellies, wine, or cordials. Captain Smith also noted the generous size of American strawberries compared to the smaller, less sweet fruit that grew on English soil.
Early settlers wrote about berry pies in their diaries, journals, and other accounts of pioneer American life, but no recipes have been found. James Beard, in American Cookery, suggests housewives made berry pies so regularly that they didn't need written recipes. Strawberries can be baked in a two-crust pie, but the more popular method is to coat fresh raw berries with thick glaze and heap that gleaming mixture in a baked, one-crust pie.
In springtime, glazed strawberry pies adorn the pie displays in supermarkets and chain restaurants. These pies may look tempting, but they often contain over-ripe, deeply disappointing berries. I was still a novice cook when I lost interest in those commercial strawberry pies and asked my mother to help me find a good recipe to make at home. Always up for the challenge of locating the best recipe, she agreed.
However, she encountered the puzzling problem of being unable to make a glaze that didn't run. One of the recipes she typed on a three-cent postcard and sent to me describes how she chose to solve the runny glaze dilemma.
Strawberry Pie
Boil for 15 minutes: 1 1/4 cups sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 2 tablespoons corn starch, and 1 cup water. Allow to cool and add 1 quart cleaned and hulled fresh strawberries. Pour mixture into individual cooked pie shells. Chill and serve with whipped cream.
Mom's Note: If the filling is a little runny, it won't matter because of the individual pie shells! My Note: I recommend reducing sugar to 1/2 cup or less.
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I never quite gave up on the Great Strawberry Pie Search and have been collecting recipes for over fifty years. The most promising ones remain in my recipe file, the large metal box my mother bought for me on one of her visits to Cleveland, my first home after marriage.
English: Print of Captain John Smith landing in Jamestown, Virginia, 1607. From 'The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John.' Courtesy of the New York Public Library.
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