Sweet Cherry Pie

Bing cherries have hit the supermarket and I couldn’t rest until I’d turned some into a pie. Traditionally, bakers use tart pie cherries, but those aren’t always easy to find . . . so I improvised. (Any sweet cherry will do.) The Man actually used the word “superb” when he took his first bite.

You won’t need much sugar in this recipe, but fresh lemon is a must to add a touch of tang. The filling is thick, resulting in neat slices once the pie has cooled. Throw in a thick, flaky pie crust and a tower of whipped cream (or a scoop of vanilla ice cream) and you have a spectacular dessert.

I made the mistake of using an extra-large pie pan (because, red) so my pie wasn’t as deep as I would have liked, but if you use a standard deep-dish pie pan, 2 pounds of cherries is going to be just right.

I’m giving you a generous recipe for pie crust so the crust can be thicker and you’ll have a little left over if you’d like to play with decorations. I made some leaves and cherries, which would have been more obvious on a solid top crust instead of the lattice, but still . . . cute.

Sweet Cherry Pie
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Ingredients
  • FILLING:
  • 2 pounds of fresh sweet cherries, pitted and halved (about 5 cups)
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ¼ cup cornstarch (3 tablespoons if you like your pie soft)
  • juice and zest of 1 large lemon, separated
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
  • CRUST:
  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1½ teaspoon salt
  • 1¼ cup cold shortening
  • ¼ cup cold butter
  • 1 tablespoon vodka (or vinegar)
  • ⅓ cup cold milk
  • BEFORE BAKING:
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water)
  • sparkling sugar
Instructions
  1. FILLING:In a large saucepan on medium heat, combine the cherries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice (reserve the zest for later) salt, and cinnamon. Stir frequently until mixture begins to bubble, then continue to cook for 6 minutes. Filling will be thick.
  2. Remove from heat and stir in lemon zest. Allow mixture to cool, stirring occasionally.
  3. CRUST: In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Cut in the butter and shortening, using a pastry blender or your fingers. Aim for lumps of butter no larger than good-sized peas.
  4. Combine the vodka and milk, and add all at once to the pastry. Stir just until combined.
  5. Divide in half. Roll one piece out on a well-floured board, rolling from the center to the outside - about ⅛ inch thick. Cut a circle at least 1 inch bigger all around than your pie pan. Roll lightly onto floured rolling pin and lift into pan. Fold excess under and crimp edges. Place pan in the refrigerator.
  6. With the other piece of dough, cut strips for a lattice crust, using a ruler to keep them straight. Mine were about 1-inch thick and long enough to reach across the top of the pie pan. Place a piece of parchment on a baking sheet and dust lightly with flour. Lay 4 or 5 strips parallel to each other, leaving space between each strip. Work with one side at a time, folding every other piece over at the center. Lay a piece across the remaining strips and gently replace the folded pieces. Now fold back the pieces that had remained down before, place another piece next to the other cross piece, and replace the folded pieces. Repeat once more to complete the side. Do the same with the other side and cut around the edge to make a circle the same size as the top of the pie. Press around the edges with your finger. Place the lattice crust in the freezer for now.
  7. Heat oven to 375 F.
  8. Once the filling has cooled, remove the pie from the refrigerator and fill. Cut the 2 tablespoons of butter into small pieces and drop them all over the top of the filling. Remove the lattice from the freezer and slide it onto the top of the pie. (You may need to use a thin cutting mat or baking sheet to help it along.)
  9. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle generously with sparkling sugar.
  10. Bake 55-60 minutes. If your crust begins to get too brown, cover lightly with foil.
  11. Allow the pie to cool for 1½ - 2 hours before cutting.

Cook the cherry filling until thickened.

Add lemon zest and set the filling aside to cool.

You don’t HAVE to use vodka, but it sure makes a nice, flaky crust!

Flute those edges! (I know . . . mine aren’t Martha Steward perfect. Hey . . . rustic is good!)

Bend every other strip down, place cross piece and replace the bent strips.

Bend remaining pieces back and add a cross piece.

Now we’re getting there!

Cut out leaves, cherries, and stems.

Added some leaves, stems, and cherries

Slightly warm. Now just add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a mound of whipped cream!

Cut into this pie while it’s just barely warm! Mmmm.

If you like your pie a little on the soft side, reduce the cornstarch to 3 tablespoons. Otherwise, if you don’t gobble it up while it’s warm, it gets fairly firm in the refrigerator. Personally, I like it that way. Holds the ice cream up better, right?

I’m leaving for a short writing retreat, but when I get back I’ll have something good to post – I’m just out of time right now! Hint: it has fresh huckleberries in it!

Lorinda

Chocolate Covered Cherry Pie

feb group postFor the month of February, nine bloggers got together for a group post called “Love and Food”. That pretty much says it all! I guess it’s true that I tend to show my love by nurturing – especially through cooking and baking.

chocolate covered cherry pieMy husband loves cherry pie. I don’t! (I picked cherries one summer long, long ago and have never felt the same about them since) At least, I didn’t like cherry pie.

But I found that an unbaked cherry pie is pretty darn good, especially when the cherries are enrobed in chocolate! The cherry filling sits in a rich chocolate pie crust and is covered with a layer of chocolate cream, then is topped with cherry liqueur-spiked whipping cream. Now that, I love! And I really love it frozen, too. I guess you can say I’m a convert.

The chocolate crust isn’t sweet like a cookie crumb crust. It’s basically a regular crust with a deep cocoa flavor. The cherry filling is canned. Yes, you heard me! I didn’t grow, pick, pit, and can these cherries, I went to the grocery store and bought two cans of cherry pie filling. Surprised you, didn’t I? You’ll need a deep-dish pie pan to hold all of this goodness. If you don’t have one, just use one can of pie filling, otherwise there won’t be enough room for the chocolate, and we can’t have that!

The chocolate topping is one-half of my filling recipe for Sumptuous Chocolate Cream Pie.

I bought a bottle of “Cherry Pie” liqueur this year and feel honor-bound to use up as much of it as possible (it’s been showing up in lots of recipes), so I flavored the whipping cream with some. It’s slightly tart, so it adds a wonderful touch to the cream. You can use a little cherry flavoring and food coloring or some maraschino cherry juice if you’d prefer.

I wanted the whipping cream to last for a day or two (there are only two of us eating this) so I stabilized it. If you’re serving this to a group of diners, you won’t need to bother; it’ll get demolished right away.

If you’re thinking this recipe looks hideously long, that’s because it really should be separated into three recipes…one for the crust, one for the chocolate layer, and one for the whipping cream. But the recipe widget will only let me create one recipe per post, and I want you to be able to print it out easily. It’s really not as complicated as it looks!

Here’s how the whole thing gets created:

Chocolate Covered Cherry Pie
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A cherry pie, enrobed with chocolate! Chocolate crust, a chocolate cream top layer, and flavored whipping cream.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups flour
  • ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 cup shortening, chilled
  • ⅓ cup buttermilk
  • 2 cans (21 oz each) cherry pie filling
  • ¾ cups sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1½ cups bilk
  • 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped coarsely
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • ½ teaspoon unflavored gelatin (if you are stabilizing your whipped cream)
  • 2 teaspoons water
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • ¼ cup powdered sugar
  • ¼ cup cherry liqueur (or substitution...see below**)
Instructions
  1. Heat oven to 375 F.
  2. You will need a deep-dish pie pan. If using a regular pie pan, reduce the cherry filling to one can.
  3. In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, salt, and sugar. Work shortening into dry mixture with pastry blender or two knives, until the size of small peas.
  4. Add the buttermilk slowly, stirring lightly with a fork. If the dough isn't coming together into a rough ball shape, add cold water 1 teaspoon at a time. You just want it to stick together and not be crumbly.
  5. Roll out approximately ⅔ of the dough between sheets of lightly floured parchment paper. This should be a little thicker than a normal pie crust.
  6. Remove the top layer of parchment and cut a circle larger than your pie pan, with an extra 1" all the way around.
  7. Slide a flat baking pan under parchment beneath the circle of dough. Place your pan upside down on the dough, centering it, and flip the pan, dough, and baking sheet over. Remove the baking sheet and carefully peel off the parchment.
  8. Ease the dough into the pan and fold the excess dough under. Flute the edge and poke a fork evenly all over the pie crust. To help keep the dough from collapsing, place in freezer for 10 minutes.
  9. Carefully line the crust with foil and fill at least one third full with beans or pie weights. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, carefully take out the foil and beans, and return to the oven to bake for an additional 10 minutes.
  10. Allow the crust to cool completely.
  11. Fill the baked shell with 2 cans of cherry pie filling. (One can for a standard pan.)
  12. Place the pie in the refrigerator while you make the chocolate layer:
  13. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly.
  14. In a medium pot combine sugar, cornstarch, salt, milk, and unsweetened chocolate. Turn burner to medium-high and stir until it reaches a low boil. Turn the temperature down to medium and continue to cook and stir with a whisk for 2 minutes.
  15. Pour about ¼ cup of the hot mixture into the eggs, stirring well, and then add the egg mixture to the pan, whisking well. Cook for an additional 2 minutes, whisking continuously.
  16. Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla and butter.
  17. Allow it to cool slightly, then pour over the cherry mixture in the pie.
  18. Chill the pie until you are ready to add the whipping cream. For best results, let the pie chill for 5 or 6 hours.
  19. To make stabilized whipping cream, sprinkle unflavored gelatin over water in a small dish. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes. (If you aren't using stabilized cream, just skip the gelatin and water step.)
  20. In a medium bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Slowly whip in the powdered sugar. Place the dish of softened gelatin in the microwave for 5-7 seconds, just until it starts to foam. While whipping, slowly drizzle the melted gelatin over the whipped cream. Whip until firm peaks form, and then add the liqueur.
  21. **If you don't wish to use liqueur, maraschino cherry juice will work well. Or you can add 1 teaspoon of cherry flavoring and a drop of red or pink food coloring, if desired.
  22. Spread or pipe the whipped cream over the pie and serve!

And, because I know that many of you have limited free time, I like to give you shortcuts. You could:

  • Use a pre-made chocolate cookie crust.
  • Use instant chocolate pudding for the chocolate layer
  • Spray on your whipping cream from a can.

The idea will be the same, though you will sacrifice a little of the flavor and texture.

making the pie crust

making the pie crust

Cut at least 1 inch larger all the way around pan

Cut at least 1 inch larger all the way around pan.

Flute edges, poke holes evenly around crust, add weights and bake.

Flute edges, poke holes evenly around crust.

Add foil and beans (or pie weights) and bake

Add foil and beans (or pie weights) and bake.

Add cherry pie filling.

Add cherry pie filling.

Adding butter and vanilla, then ready to spread on cherries.

Adding butter and vanilla, then ready to spread on cherries.

spread hot chocolate mixture on cherries.

spread hot chocolate mixture on cherries.

You've got to try a slice of this!

You’ve got to try a slice of this!

To see what the other passion-inspired bloggers have made, just click on the following links. Please show them some love back, and leave a comment. We all just live for comments.Well…nice ones.

Limoncello Cream Dream Cake by Crumbs in my Mustachio

Nutella Frangelico Love Cheesecake by Tampa Cake Girl

Cherry Blossom Chocolates by Hun, What’s for Dinner?

Cookie Cutter Chocolate Bark by Lemony Thyme

Chocolate Pound Cake with a Chocolate Glaze by Moore or Less Cooking Blog

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Fudge by Baking in a Tornado

Sex and Candy Cake by Cooking from a SAHM