The Baking Bible: Cherry Sweetie Pie
A sweet cherry pie with a pretty lattice top, this was an overall winner in my house. I also think this is the best version of Rose's Tender and Flaky Pie Crust I've made to date!
It is a fairly simple and straight forward pie, which is also a plus. The cherries are pitted, but you could also use frozen cherries which I assume would already be pitted. Rose says if the cherries are on the large side to cut them in half with scissors. She considers large to be 1 inch or more, but honestly I've never seen a fresh sweet cherry that isn't about 1 inch in size. Rose picked up a tip from Cook's Illustrated to add a couple of pureed fresh plums to give the pie a bit of tartness. All the fruit is then macerated in some sugar and cornstarch and cooked until the juices thicken. After this mixture cools down lemon zest and vanilla extract are stirred in and poured into the waiting pie crust.
The pie crust is the usual Tender and Flaky crust which employs cream cheese and butter and heavy cream and apple cider vinegar as the secret weapons. I've found a sort of hybrid food processor-by hand mixing technique that seems to work for me. Anyhoots the top crust is a lattice top which is just so darn pretty and appealing. I dabbed a bit of watered down cream on the top and sprinkled on some sanding sugar for sparkles and crunch. Now I'm itching to buy a pastry crimper for even prettier lattice tops.
Then the pie gets baked atop a hot baking stone; mine took a little more than the required time to finish. It is supposed to cool for 3 hours but I think we broke into it after only a couple of hours. I whipped up the leftover heavy cream from the Rum Raisin French Toast to serve alongside, although vanilla ice cream would be a better match.
The crust shattered in a wonderfully flaky way, and the cherry filling was still warm and a bit runny. Mark appreciated that the cherries were still toothsome and that the filing wasn't sickly sweet. It is quite a yummy filling and the lemon zest complements the cherries so well. However what I love most about this pie is the pie crust! Maybe I'm finally getting the hang of pie dough? That would be exciting!
It is a fairly simple and straight forward pie, which is also a plus. The cherries are pitted, but you could also use frozen cherries which I assume would already be pitted. Rose says if the cherries are on the large side to cut them in half with scissors. She considers large to be 1 inch or more, but honestly I've never seen a fresh sweet cherry that isn't about 1 inch in size. Rose picked up a tip from Cook's Illustrated to add a couple of pureed fresh plums to give the pie a bit of tartness. All the fruit is then macerated in some sugar and cornstarch and cooked until the juices thicken. After this mixture cools down lemon zest and vanilla extract are stirred in and poured into the waiting pie crust.
The pie crust is the usual Tender and Flaky crust which employs cream cheese and butter and heavy cream and apple cider vinegar as the secret weapons. I've found a sort of hybrid food processor-by hand mixing technique that seems to work for me. Anyhoots the top crust is a lattice top which is just so darn pretty and appealing. I dabbed a bit of watered down cream on the top and sprinkled on some sanding sugar for sparkles and crunch. Now I'm itching to buy a pastry crimper for even prettier lattice tops.
Then the pie gets baked atop a hot baking stone; mine took a little more than the required time to finish. It is supposed to cool for 3 hours but I think we broke into it after only a couple of hours. I whipped up the leftover heavy cream from the Rum Raisin French Toast to serve alongside, although vanilla ice cream would be a better match.
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| a bit too browned, but don't let that bother you |
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| snowy owl took a bath in my mixing bowl while the pie baked |
So pretty!!!
ReplyDeleteYou make such a pretty lattice and crust design. Being able to make flaky pie crust at the drop of hat would be exciting in my book, as well. Congrat's on a gorgeous pie. Snowy Owl is too funny!
ReplyDeleteIt would be funny if we all ended up as expert pie bakers!
ReplyDeletewow!!! great looking crust and i love the description of shattering flaky!
ReplyDeleteLooks so yummy.
ReplyDeleteI have also started blogging and would love to share such stuff with readers. The LookBook