Easy Gorgeous Rhubarb Strawberry Pie With Coconut Whipped Cream

Yummy yummy in my tummy! What to do when it's Easter break and it's rhubarb season? Bake a delicious rhubarb pie of course. The nice thing with rhubarb is that you can easily make gorgeous patterns, in my case I decide for a flower type geometrical pattern. No need to be the best baker out there, this pie is easy to make, definitely delicious and looks quite impressive. I added the step for an optional coconut whipped cream, which is optional, but nonetheless delicious. So: put your apron on, dress to impress and let's start baking!

Let's start with gathering all the ingredients:

- 125 grams of butter + a little more to grease the pan

- 125 grams of plant-based margarine

- 400 grams of flour + a little more for rolling out the dough

- pinch of salt

- 200 grams + about 6 teaspoons of sugar

- 1 sachet of baking powder (about one teaspoon)

- 2 eggs

- 1 tablespoon of maizena

- rhubarb (about 4 stalks)

- 500 grams of strawberries

optional (see step 36-39)

- coconut milk

Next, let's gather the supplies:

- Mixing bowl

- Mixer with 'normal' mixing hooks and dough hooks

- Springform

- Cutting board

- Sharp knife to cut the strawberries and rhubarb

- Pastry brush

- Oven

- Cooling rack

- Rolling pin

- Cooking scale

optional (see step 36-39)

- Piping bag

- Your preferred piping nozzle

First things first: preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit).

If you are opting for the coconut whipped cream in step 36-39 now is the time to put the coconut milk in the freezer to let it cool down. In case you are reading this recipe the night before you can put the coconut milk in the fridge overnight. The cooling of the coconut milk will make the coconut water and coconut cream separate from each other.

In a mixing bowl, measure out the following ingredients:

- 125 grams of butter

- 125 grams of plant based margarine

- 200 grams of sugar

- pinch of salt

Now grab your mixer, put in the 'normal' mixing hooks and start mixing. Mix until the ingredients are well combined and the mixture is a little lighter in colour.

Once it's all well combined add one egg. Safe the other one for sweeping the dough in step 31.

Now mix the egg in well. I used the same hooks as before.

Once the eggs are nicely incorporated it's time to add the dry ingredients:

- 400 grams of flour

- 1 sachet of baking powder ( about 1 teaspoon, 16 grams)

And mix again! At this point I change my normal mixing hooks for the dough hooks. This works a lot better and easier. Start mixing the dry ingredients into your wet ingredients until it starts to stick together more and more. It should almost form a ball on it's own. At first it is still very crumbly and you might think you added to much flour. Don't worry! Just keep on mixing/kneading and it will start forming a ball after a few minutes.

Now before we start rolling out the dough grease your baking tin. You don't want to forget this step, otherwise, your pie will not get out. That would be sad, wouldn't it? I usually start with the butter straight from the paper, then I use a baking brush to smooth things out and get it in all the corners.

Now again, don't forget this step or your dough will stick to your surface. So grab your flour and sprinkle some on the surface you are going to roll your dough out on.

Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and put it on your surface. Get your rolling pin and put some flour on it. Also sprinkle some on you dough. This will prevent the dough and the rolling pin sticking to each other. Now roll the dough into a big circle (at least as wide as your baking tin). As you can see I pressed my baking tin into the dough, this way I know the dough is rolled out enough and it will make the next step easier.

Now the tricky part is to get your dough in your baking tin. You need to cover the bottom and the sides. I have tried many ways, but for me, the best way is to cut your big circle in smaller long parts. Then transfer them one by one into the baking tin and cover the bottom first, then the sides. I use my fingers to form the dough to the baking tin and to make sure the strips are connected together again. Make sure there are no holes in your dough. This will make the pie instable once baked. Safe a little bit of the dough for making a nice rim in step 29.

Now it's time to work with the rhubarb. First: wash thoroughly. This is the easiest when the rhubarb is not cut yet.

Now you need to cut the rhubarb in smaller pieces. Start by cutting of the end bits. Instead of cutting straight, at a 90-degree angle, you want to make about a 45-degree angle cut. Otherwise the nice geometric pattern won't work. I made my pieces about 1 cm wide.

For the strawberries, I like to cut mine in quarters. Of course, there is a big variety of sizes out there. If you have very small ones, cutting in half is sufficient enough. Easy peasy!

Now it's time to fill your pie. First up: add the strawberries and spread them out evenly. Try to not make some stick out. The rhubarb pattern will be made on top of this layer, so a flat even layer is important.

Now sprinkle about one tablespoon of maizena on your strawberries. This will absorb some of the juices of the rhubarb and strawberries. A lot of juices are probably going to come out (of course depending on your fruits) and you don't want to make the bottom of your pie all soggy.

The fun part starts now! The part where your easy pie, will turn into an impressive pie. So grab your rhubarb and get going.

The first thing is to make the middle flower. Search for similar size pieces, this will make it look a lot nicer. Find the middle and form a flower with six pieces of rhubarb. The points of the six pieces will touch in the centre of your pie. All pieces will all be turned the same way, facing the same direction. I find the easiest way to lay them down is with the roundest side up. So the hollow part facing down, the 'belly' facing up.

Now make a second round by placing the rhubarb pieces next to the ones you just laid, facing the same directions. Try again to grab the same size pieces and if possible similar sizes as the first round. And another little fun tip is to try and alternate the more red and more green pieces.

Now repeat this until you reach the sides of your baking tin. Again, try and find similar size pieces. Now you have a flower/star/windmill like figure (see pictures).

Your pie is looking already quite impressive, isn't it? And that wasn't so hard, right?

Of course, you could leave it like this, but I like to cover the entire pie. By now my bigger, wider pieces were almost all gone so I decided to go with the similar smaller pieces.

You will now make rows next to the ones that are already there, so you fill up the spaces in between. (see pictures for a clear explanation/example)

By now you have (depending on your baking tin and rhubarb size) three rows. All the pieces in the same row are facing the same direction.

You will have some holes left on the sides. We will fix this by cutting some pieces to the right size so they fit (almost ;) ) perfectly in the holes. This will mostly be covered by dough in the next step, so don't worry if it isn't perfect. Try not to press the pieces too much in the dough sides though, you don't want to make a hole in it.

Since rhubarb isn't the sweetest fruit at this point I add about four teaspoons of sugar. Of course, if you know your rhubarb is very very sour, you can add more or the same vice versa.

Depending on how big your strawberries were and how high the sides of your baking tin, the dough might be a little higher than the top of the rhubarb pattern. If that's the case, I like to fold the dough over towards the centre.

Now it's time to roll out the dough you had left (flower your surface first) and cut about 1,5 cm (about half an inch) strips. It's okay if it's not one big one but some smaller ones.

Place the strips on the outside of your pie in a circle (on top of your folded edge, if you have one). If you had multiple short pieces attache them by pressing the sides together/down with your fingers. Now you have a clean edge/top, yay!

Now beat one egg and use a brush to sweep this on the dough. This will make the dough look nicely brown and a little shiny once it comes out of the oven.

Time to put your pie in the oven!

Set an alarm for about 45 minutes. After 45 minutes go and check on your pie. If it's very brown already or you think it's browning too fast lower the oven temperature with about 15 degrees Celsius (about 60 F). Now set another alarm for 35 minutes. Always keep a look out at your pie, each and every oven is a little different. These times worked for my oven but might not exactly perfectly work for yours.

Your pie is looking good? Well, then it's time to take it out of the oven! Place it on a cooling rack to cool down a bit.

Carefully with a knife make sure that the pie crust is not sticking to the sides of your baking tin. Is it all free? Then take open up the tin, and take the sides of.

Look at that! You did it! Yes, you can take your time now to admire your cake. And it wasn't even that hard, was it? You can leave your pie like this, or you can add a coconut whipped cream border for some extra fancy schmanciness. (see next steps)

Going all out there? Good for you :), I have to say it ís very yummy. Alright, grab your cold can of coconut milk, but be careful to not shake it. Open it up and spoon the top layer of thick coconut cream in a bowl. Add about one to two teaspoons of sugar for a little extra sweetness.

Now grab your mixer and mix mix mix until it has formed a whipped cream like substance. You now that it's done when it's not runny and you when you take your mixer out, you see little trace 'marks'. (see picture) It might take a while before you get the right substance, but don't give up, you will get it eventually!

Now grab your prefered nozzle and put it in your piping bag. Scoop the whipped coconut cream in and get ready to for some piping.

Now VERY important: let your cake cool down before you pipe a nice border! As you can see in the pictures I wasn't patient enough, and I had to pay for it.. ;) My coconut whipped cream started melting right away, and my fancy schmancy piped border was gone in a second. But, if your pie is cooled down, go ahead and go for it.

If you don't have a piping bag or nozzles, or you just don't feel like it, you can also just scoop a blob of it one the pie pieces when you are serving the pie. It tastes just as nice. ;)

Hopefully, you are enjoying this pie just as much as me and my family do. I'd love to see some pictures of your creations, and if you have any questions, let me know!