Easy Summer Strawberry Pinwheel Biscuit Pie

This easy strawberry recipe begins as biscuit dough and then morphs into a wondrous cross between a shortcake and a cobbler, cooked with fresh strawberries and jam in a pie dish. It’s pretty, as well as pretty delicious.

If working with conventional grocery store strawberries, start with a full two pounds of fruit. By the time you rid them of their cottony-white cores, you will have sent a quarter to half a pound to the compost heap. If you can start with truly ripe berries, such as the small frais de bois type often available at farmers’ markets, you can get by with 1½ pounds to end up with your needed four cups.

Though this is a strawberry recipe, you can substitute another kind of berry or combine multiple varieties, if you wish. A dollop of softly whipped cream would be a welcome final flourish, as would a little moat of plain cream poured around each portion.

Easy Summer Strawberry Pinwheel Biscuit Pie Recipe

Summer Strawberry Pinwheel Biscuit Pie Ingredients

• 4 cups strawberries, sliced and white cottony centers discarded
• About ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp instant or granulated tapioca
• 1 cup strawberry jam or preserves
• 2 tbsp melted unsalted butter
• Sanding sugar, or other large crystal sugar, optional

For the Biscuit Dough:

• 2 cups low-gluten biscuit or pastry flour, or 1¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour + ¼ cup
• cake flour or, less desirably, 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ¾ tsp salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 3 tbsp lard, well-chilled
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, well-chilled
• ¾ cup + 2 tbsp buttermilk

Biscuit Pie Preparation Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

For the Biscuits:

1. Butter a 9- or 10-inch deep-dish pie pan. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda into a large shallow bowl. Cut the lard and butter into small chunks and add them to the dry ingredients. Combine with a pastry blender just until a coarse meal forms.
2. Make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk. With your fingers and a few swift strokes, combine the dough just until it’s a sticky mess. Turn out onto a lightly floured board or, better, a pastry cloth.
3. Clean, dry, and flour your hands. Gently pat out the dough and fold it back over itself about a half-dozen times, just to smooth. (A dough scraper helps greatly with this.) Pat out again into a rectangle about ½ inch thick. Cover the dough lightly and refrigerate it for about 20 minutes.

For the Pie:

1. Mix together in a medium bowl the strawberries, sugar, and tapioca. Spoon the mixture evenly into the pie pan.
2. Remove the biscuit dough from the refrigerator. Roll it into a rectangle about 10 x 18 inches.
3. Spread the jam over the dough, within about ½ inch of the dough’s edges. Then, if it’s too thick to spread without tearing the dough, add just a touch of water to get a looser consistency, but don’t make it runny. Starting from one of the long sides, roll up snugly. Slice into a dozen equal-sized pinwheel biscuits.
4. Arrange the biscuits evenly with a cut side-up, on top of the fresh strawberry mixture. There will be some gaps between the biscuits but they will fill in as they bake.
5. Bake covered for 10 minutes, then uncover and continue cooking for 15-20 minutes, until the biscuits are golden brown. After, brush with melted butter while still hot. Sprinkle with sanding sugar, if you wish.
6. Let stand for a few minutes before serving warm or at room temperature. To serve, scoop out servings around each biscuit, making sure to get a good portion of the berries and juices from the bottom layer.

Story by Cheryl Alters Jamison / Styling by Anna Franklin / Photography by Dave Bryce

Subscribe to TABLE Magazine‘s print edition.