Dreamy, creamy white chocolate cream filling in a golden flakey crust, topped with a sweet homemade strawberry sauce!
If there’s one thing I love about summer, it’s definitely the abundance of fresh berries available. Whether it’s raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, or strawberries, I can NEVER get enough berries in my life. This is especially true when I bake them into heavenly desserts!
So with strawberry season coming to an end (at least here in Oregon), I thought I’d give you a recipe that’s guaranteed to excite those tastebuds like no other…
This White Chocolate Strawberry Cream Pie is the PERFECT summer pie. The filling is light, creamy, and infused with the richness of white chocolate. The homemade strawberry sauce is just as exquisite with its sweet, refreshing, and slightly tart flavor. You can’t buy a canned strawberry sauce that’ll come anywhere close to this homemade recipe. And why would you want to when it’s so easy to make your own from scratch?? Besides, those canned berry toppings are about 80% glaze and 20% berries. If you’re lucky…
The sauce only requires a little bit of your time and just a few ingredients. First, you cook the berries in a saucepan over medium heat until the juices begin to release. Once this happens, a mixture of sugar and cornstarch is stirred into the strawberries, eventually creating a beautiful sauce. It really only takes about 10 minutes, and the result is the most delicious strawberry sauce you will ever put into your mouth.
The white chocolate filling is just as simple, if not more so. Just combine some cream cheese with a little vanilla, beat in your melted white chocolate, and fold in some fresh whipped cream. That’s it! The hard part is keeping yourself from devouring the entire bowlful once you get that first lethal taste. Just remind yourself that the wait will be WELL worth it once you try it with the strawberry sauce on top.
BEYOND divine…
The pie crust does require a little more time and effort than the sauce and filling, but if you want, you can definitely go store-bought. As someone who’s not the biggest fan, nor the best at making pastry pie crusts, I would totally understand.
You also have the option of doing a simple graham cracker crust or Golden Oreo crust, if you so desire. I will say, however, that this homemade pie crust is so flakey, tender, and buttery. It really is the perfect crust to go with the fluffy white chocolate filling and delicious strawberry sauce.
As with all of my cream pies, I like to add a nice border of freshly-whipped cream to the top. Not only does it make the pie extra pretty, but it serves as a great excuse to add more sweetness to the pie. And if I’m being honest, if it weren’t for the fact that I was photographing this pie for this post, I would’ve covered the entire thing in whipped cream instead of just the border.
Yeah, I like my whipped cream…
White Chocolate Strawberry Cream Pie
Ingredients
Crust:
- 3 Tablespoons water
- 1 Tablespoon sour cream
- 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 Tablespoons shortening cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter cold
Strawberry Sauce:
- 3 cups chopped strawberries
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- Pinch of salt
White Chocolate Filling:
- ⅔ cup + 2 Tablespoons heavy cream divided
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 6 ounces white chocolate
- Freshly-whipped cream for decorating
Instructions
Make the Crust:
- In a small bowl, combine the water and sour cream; set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir the flour, sugar and salt together. Scatter the shortening over the flour, then use a cheese grater to grate the butter on top. Using a fork or a pastry blender, cut the mixture together until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add the sour cream mixture and use a stiff rubber spatula to stir and press the dough together until it forms one big mound. If dough is still too dry and doesn’t hold together, add another tablespoon of water.
- Turn the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap and flatten into a 5-inch disk. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least one hour.
- Once chilled, roll the dough out into a 12-inch circle and fit into a greased 9-inch pie plate. Trim, fold, and crimp the edge of the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 15 minutes until chilled and firm.
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. To blind-bake, I like to press a sheet of aluminum foil into the pie pan since it gets into the crevices better than parchment paper. I then pour two cups of granulated sugar on top of the foil, and use a spoon to press the sugar down into the foil. Place pie plate onto a baking sheet and bake until the edges of the crust are starting to brown, about 15-16 minutes. Remove pie from the oven and carefully lift the aluminum foil (with the sugar) out of the pie. Return the pie crust to the oven and bake until the bottom crust is golden brown, about 11-13 minutes longer. Remove and cool completely.
Make the Strawberry Sauce:
- In a medium saucepan, heat the strawberries over medium heat until they soften and their juices start to release, about 4-5 minutes. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Add mixture to the strawberries and continue cooking until it begins to thicken, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat. Pour into a shallow bowl and place in the refrigerator to cool completely.
Make the White Chocolate Filling:
- In the chilled bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the 2/3 cup heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Transfer whipped cream to a separate bowl and return bowl to mixer.
- Switch the whisk attachment out for the paddle attachment and beat the cream cheese on high until smooth and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, combine the white chocolate and 2 Tablespoons of heavy cream. Heat in the microwave, stopping and stirring every 30 seconds, until mixture is smooth. Pour white chocolate into cream cheese mixture and beat until combined. Add a third of the whipped cream to the bowl, beating until smooth. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the remaining whipped cream by hand with a spatula.
- Pour white chocolate filling into the pie shell and smooth out evenly with a spatula. Pour the cooled strawberry sauce evenly on top. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.
- Decorate border with freshly-whipped cream. Slice and serve!