Cheery Cherry Pie...

Robbie's "Birthday Week" has officially begun with the the 4th of July weekend kick-off. In honor of him and the friends we will share a meal and pyro-techniques with tonight, I baked my first made-from-scratch Cherry Pie. Robbie's favorite is from the Upper Crust, a Westport bakery nestled inside of Pryde's... the Baking, Cooking and All Lovely Things For Your Home Shop. I can only hope and pray my pie turns out as yummy!

I thought I would share the recipe, process and result of my pie making adventure. It really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, however, as you'll see at the end, there was a bit of a mishap with piecing the top crust to the bottom. Apparently I needed to press much harder to make sure the two crusts were meshed. I now have gobs of cherry pie filling to clean out of my up-until-today-sparkling-clean oven. The final result has yet to be tasted (it's in the process of cooling right now and Robbie has been given strict instructions to NOT TOUCH) but it sure smells delicious and the tiny taste I took of the filling tells me that part will be quite good. But, as any pie eater will tell you - the crust must be equally as tasty as the filling.

So here's the recipe - a combination of Gourmet's online pie crust recipe and two different cherry pie filling recipes.


Cheery Cherry Pie

Ingredients for crust:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 sticks of cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup cold vegetable shortening, trans-fat free
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 to 7 tablespoons of ice water
1 tablespoon sugar

Make dough:

Blend together flour, butter, shortening and salt in bowl. With pastry blender cut ingredients together until the mixture resembles course meal with some roughly pea-sized butter lumps.

Drizzle 5 tablespoons ice water evenly over mixture and gently stir with a fork until incorporated.

Squeeze a small handful of dough. If it doesn't hold together, add more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring until incorporated. Do not overwork, or pastry will be tough.

Turn dough out onto a work surface and divide into 8 portions. With heel of your hand, smear each portion once or twice in a forward motion to help distribute fat. Gather all dough together with pastry scraper. Divide dough with one half slightly larger, then form each piece into a ball and flatten each into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap or wax paper and chill until firm - at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

Ingredients for filling:

1 qt fresh sour red cherries, pitted
(OR 2-2 pound cans sour red pitted cherries with 1/4 cup of juice)
**Note - if you use canned cherries you do not need to add the cornstarch and sugar. Check the label on the can and if it has these ingredients don't add more.
**2 tablespoons cornstarch
**1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Make filling and bake pie:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F with rack in middle and put a large baking sheet on rack (a step I apparently skipped!!!)

In large bowl combine cherries and other ingredients. Allow to stand for 30 minutes.

Roll our larger piece of dough (keep remaining piece chilled) on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin into a 14-inch round. Fit into a 9-inch pie plate. Trim any excess dough to leave a 1/2 inch overhang. Chill shell while rolling out top crust.

Roll our remaining dough on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin into a 12-inch round.

Toss cherries well again, then add them to shell and cover with top crust. Press edged of crust together, then trim leaving a 1/2-inch overhand. Fold overhand underneath, then crimp decoratively. Brush top of crust with milk. Cut out 5 - 1 by 1/2 inch tear-dropped steam vents 1 inch from center. Sprinkle pie with sugar, 1 tablespoon.

Bake pie on preheated baking sheet 30 minutes, then cover edge with a pie shield or foil and reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees. Continue to bake until crust is deep golden and filling is bubbling in center, 50 -60 minutes more.

Transfer pie to a rack to cool completely, 3-4 hours.

Enjoy a slice with someone you love!

Comments

Grumpa said…
Well, it looks yummy! Too bad we aren't there to share it! One thing I do know, you are very good at burning pie stuff in the oven!!! Seriously, that was a major undertaking, congratulations! I use a pie shell recipe that makes 5 shells at a time. You can use however many you want and freeze the leftover dough until you need more! Easy as (...hmmm)pie. Did you use little cutters to cut out the shape in the middle? It looked too pretty to cut. Next time you come home bring pie! Love, Mom
10:27 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Settling in...

Next month marks our 8th Moved to Kansas City Anniversary. Eight years and I am just now feeling like we are settling in. Life is moving along at a steady clip. I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, but thank goodness it exists or I would never know anything about anybody. Having a small child seems to suck you into this introverted world where all you (feel) like you do is pick up toys, read Little Golden Books and sing The Wheels On the Bus. But, of course, this is only partially true. As disconnected as I feel to the world outside of my home and the Cancer Center, I am that much more connected to my beautiful son. I am learning to accept that "balance" is a myth. Lately, I've spent a lot of time challenging my notion of health and wellness. Robbie and I joined a gym and I am actually committing time to go. In fact, I even made the large investment to work with a personal trainer. I am trying so incredibly hard to hang up my discomfort and unease about my bod...
Read more

I knew I was forgetting something...

Image
Writing and keeping a journal has always been cathartic for me and I think often, "I should jot that down." The many " thats " that have gone by since last July are almost too numerous to count, and frankly, I've sadly forgotten most of them. I love to write and this blog is testament to that. Unfortunately, my time and energy is limited these days and given my OCD nature, I can't just write a simple little update without revision and editing. I've always wanted to be sure I am saying what I mean and mean what I say...and if I can do it eloquently with a little additional thought, well even better. And that's where I struggle these days. It seems my brain power is more focused on the miles of pages that need to be read for class, remembering to pick my child up from daycare and staying on top of a job that, at times, consumes more of my life than I'd rather admit. Needless to say, I'm busy and taking time to sit, think, ponder and write (gra...
Read more

Gaining wait...

The heaviness of a few extra pounds compares little to the heaviness of grief. I'm feeling quite heavy these days and am impatiently waiting for a lighter spirit. The Daily Cancer Grind makes me weary and a little over a week ago Robbie's cousin lost her precious 4 month old daughter, Kate. Attending the funeral did little to ease the grief, but spending time with Kate's twin sister, her mommy, daddy and other caring relatives helped (a little) in redirecting the anger I was feeling. Am feeling. The grief in that home was palpable. It breathed, rattled the walls. We are losing patients, naturally...the holidays are approaching. I saw it in the funeral industry and the hospice industry and now the cancer care industry. People decline this time of the year. Not that the holidays are depressing enough. It's different this time though. I'm losing friends. Some of these women I see more than my best gal pals. I'm watching their decline and wishing on anything, everyt...
Read more