My Mother’s Strawberry Yoghurt Pie is a perfect way to showcase the upcoming strawberry season in the Northern Hemisphere - and to use up any frozen you might have left in the Southern! This was the dessert that I requested for every family gathering and birthday. Not too sweet, lighter than traditional cheesecake and utterly silky and delightful. The only problem is, I’m the only person in my house who can eat it, so I’ve had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner today. (Please forgive the marks on top. I was worried the top would congeal without a covering, so I just about put one on, but then decided to remove it to see if it didn’t... and it didn’t! So the whole top would otherwise look smooth). I'm also going to post photos when I've done this again with both chopped AND puréed strawberries, rather than all of them roughly puréed, as I think that'll look prettier.
Serves 2 of me or 10 normal people ;)
Requires: a 23cm springform tin (or two 18cm springform tins - I often do this and give one away! - just increase the amount of the base ingredients to 375g biscuits and 150g butter)
baking parchment
Ingredients:
250g digestive biscuits
100g butter, melted 800g ripe strawberries
500g Greek yoghurt
500g cream cheese
2-4 Tbsp icing sugar (I only use 2)*
Juice of one large lemon
1½ sachets of powdered gelatine (I used Dr Oetker), or the equivalent leaves/powder to set 750mL liquid (there is more liquid here, but we want it soft and silky, not too gelatinous. Half a sachet of Dr Oetker is 2 level teaspoons.
Method:
First, grease the tin with a little butter and line with parchment/baking paper. I lined both base and sides, but you really don't need it for the base. Just use a long piece for the circumference of the tin and use the butter to seal the edges, too, so it doesn't compromise your perfect circle shape!
Using a food processor, blitz the digestive biscuits in to crumbs, then pour in the melted butter and pulse again. Spoon the biscuit mixture in to the tin and smooth it down with a spoon and hands. Then, refrigerate for at least 30 minutes while you prepare the topping.
Prepare the strawberries by hulling and halving. In the pictured pie, I used the food processor for all of them to be roughly chopped, but I think it's much nicer to have a smoother pulp and some sliced and added as a decoration instead. the texture is much silkier. So, if you’re going to do that, reserve 200g strawberries to slice thinly and stick around the edge (just grease the circumference of the prepared tin) and the remaining 600g to the food processor with the lemon juice, and process to a smooth pulp.
In a large bowl, mix the yoghurt, cream cheese and icing sugar* with a hand-held mixer/whisk until well-blended but not bubbly.
Then prepare the gelatine. The Dr Oetker is great because you just have to dissolve it in hot water, whereas for other brands, you have to soak the powder or leaves in cold water before dissolving in hot... and it just generally takes more faffing!
Add the prepared gelatine to the yoghurt mixture and beat until well-mixed. Then, add the chopped strawberries and puréed strawberries to the creamy stuff and fold it in well with a spoon, enjoying the transition from delectably creamy white to luscious pink! I haven't tried keeping it as a 'swirl' but I'm sure it would work, too.
Carefully transfer to the fridge and chill for at least 6 hours, and preferably overnight.
Then, gently ease the pie out of the springform tin and transfer to a platter (you can keep it on the tin base if you don't mind it being cut on). Very gently peel away the paper. ENJOY.
*I like my Strawberry Yoghurt Pie to be not particularly sweetened, so that the sweetness comes MAINLY from the strawberries and the biscuit base, but I know that might not suit others. The strawberries have to be really sweet for that to work well, so if you know you have the sweetest of strawberries, let them be the star. Otherwise, add an extra tablespoon of icing sugar and maybe another if you've got REALLY bland strawberries!
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