It's cherry season, so I couldn't resist a pie-- even though my very first entry for this blog was a cherry pie. One cannot have too many cherry pies! The one I made first was a "light" version, ie. a much less buttery crust. I went all-out on this pie. Fresh cherries instead of filling, and a from-scratch basic butter pie crust.
So here goes yumthing...
The key to a really good berry pie lies in fresh berries. Right now, height of summer, blueberries and cherries are the key to excellence. ;) This pie could JUST as easily be done with blueberries (I made one last year).
And if you have fresh berries, you need something to hold them all together. Here's where the magic ingredient of pie filling comes in: cornstarch.
And then the crust, which can be daunting, if only because it seems so simple and yet can go so easily wrong. Simple ingredients, simple instructions, not a problem.
Cherry pie a la Kate.
Serves ~8, 9" pie pan
For the crust (makes enough for top and bottom):
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of cold butter
1/2 - 3/4 cup ice water
For the filling:
5 or 6 cups pitted fresh tart cherries, drained
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons water
Making the crust (make ahead up to two days, but at least an hour or two):
In a large shallow bowl, mix flour, sugar and salt. Cut up the butter into pieces and use a pastry cutter to break and mix the butter into the flour mixture. Combine until the butter pieces are mixed in and small, but they don't need to be consistent. The key to the flakiness of the crust lies in the butter being coated (not completely mixed to a pulp) with the flour. Add the ice water (no cubes) 1/4 cup at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon or your hands to start putting the dough together. Sprinkle a few drops of water as needed, but don't make the dough too wet. Knead it briefly until it forms one large ball of dough. It should be moist and pliable, not overly mushy. Separate the dough into two equal balls and wrap each one individually in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least an hour -- three is better, at least -- before rolling.
Making the filling:
In a small saucepan on low heat, bring 1 cup of cherries and the granulated sugar to a boil, stirring occasionally to keep from burning. Meanwhile, pour the rest of the cherries into a large bowl. In another small bowl, combine the cornstarch and the water until smooth.
Once the cherries in the saucepan come to a boil, whisk about 1/3 of the cherry mixture into the cornstarch bowl and stir. Replace the saucepan on the stove and return to a boil. Once mixture is boiling, gradually whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Stir the mixture over low heat until it becomes syrupy and thick -- this can take a little while, have patience! Scrape this thick cherry syrup from the saucepan over the top of the cherries in the large bowl, and fold in.
Putting the pie together:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with the rack at the lowest level.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and place each piece on a floured surface, lightly flouring the top as well. Roll out to make a circle 11" or so in diameter. Place it in the bottom of the pie pan and press lightly to make sure it fits firmly. Pour the filling into the pie shell, spreading evenly. Place the second layer of rolled dough over the top of the pie (if you like, you can cut the dough for the top into strips and weave them to make a proper design) and press around the edges with your fingers to connect the bottom and the top layers of dough and to make sure there is no excess hanging off the sides. Trim with a paring knife if necessary.
Poke a few holes with a fork in the top of the pie and bake for a total of 50 minutes. If after about 40 minutes the top of the pie has not started to become golden, move the rack to the top of the oven for the last ten minutes or so to brown.
Cool on a rack and serve warm or at room temperature -- great with ice cream or whip. ;) Or plain! The crust is so good you don't need any accompaniment.
Et voila! :D
Soundtrack to this baking adventure: The Decemberists' Picaresque.
This is just worth mentioning because it's super yummy, even though it's not exactly a recipe. At the grocery store the other day, on a whim, I bought chicken breast that had been seasoned with a Door County cherry rub. Normally, I don't buy pre-seasoned things, and I'll admit that I thought it was a little bit salty. But, hey, not everything can be perfect, right? I did like a little bit of salt with the sweet/tart taste of the cherries, but not too much.
Anyway, my favorite way to have chicken breast is to pan-fry on medium heat so that it cooks kind of slowly and stays really, really juicy inside. Then, since I have a big bowl of tart cherries sitting here waiting to be put into a pie, I decided to sprinkle some over the chicken. No sauce required -- these little cherries are usually pretty juicy, so they're good to kind of mash up a little bit and spread on the chicken.
Anyway. It was delicious. I had to share. :)
***
I was going to go blueberry picking today, but plans fell through -- it is also HOT OUT THERE. Although the heat is not going to keep me from heading over to the local annual art fair, where my dad is displaying his paintings again this year. Going to art shows always brings me back to teenage summers when I used to accompany my dad to art fairs around the state and the midwest -- the most fun were always the furthest away. ;)
So, where have I been the last week?
Where haven't I been?
Well, blogging. (Sorry!) :)
But here I am! It's Friday, it's a gorgeous, warm, end-of-July day and I'm listening to James Newton Howard's original score for the film The Village, and loving this afternoon. In fact, the last few days have been simply lovely.
It starts with friends, and goes on with family, and even further with the prospect of new and exciting things to come. As I mentioned, South Korea is definitely on the docket. I've been putting in my resume where I can, and keeping my eye out for positions once they start opening up for February. I'm in no position to go on any emergency-hire expediency-required last-minute escapes to the other side of the globe, but I'm hoping not to wait longer than February. Until then, there's plenty of other applications, interviews, and paperwork to do before any packing/moving/traveling happens. Of course, updates galore to come where all that's concerned! Right now, it's a waiting game and not much more.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've had some really good times with some of my greatest friends. One really fantastic friend is working his last day at the bookstore tomorrow, so it has been bittersweet lately. It's so hard to see people go that I get along with so well -- it makes such a huge impact on daily goings-on, even (especially?) at work when you are with them many hours every day, every week. It's interesting to, for once, experience the feeling of being left. Historically, I never stuck around any one place as long as I've been here again, and I became accustomed to being the one who gave everyone else the news that I was leaving. I was the leaver, always. Now... I'm being left. It's an interesting sensation to finally catch up with how that feels on the other end.
The beauty of distance is the ability to communicate through letters.
Earlier on in the week, I got my hands on my first real cataloging project at the museum, which entailed a collection of 1940s dental hygiene and food values posters. Weird! But really funky -- and kind of disturbing in a going-to-the-dentist-makes-me-cringe sort of way. So the culmination of all of my "training" there has come down to this one first all-me project that includes cleaning, writing up condition reports and informational worksheets, photographing, and entering data into the computerized database. It's all very nice, actually. I'm convinced I couldn't do this sort of solitary work full time, but it's nice to have a chunk of time on Monday mornings to put toward something like this. And the whole point of the museum volunteering stint was to figure out if I loved it anyway, so... question answered. ;)
Anyway. Yesterday, my mom, sister and grandmother drove the couple hours northeast to Door County to check out an antique store. However, due to:
...I was running on fumes and could hardly stay awake for more than ten consecutive minutes in the car, or walking around an antique mall, for that matter. I had my camera with me, but was in no mood to be much of an imagist. Possibly, the one benefit of being terribly hungover and running on literally a half hour of sleep (at 8am), was that absolutely nothing was interesting enough to want to buy. However, I came away with some spoils! They were one major reason for going in the first place. Little red glories, that Door County is famous for:
Both sweet and tart cherries, the tart ones are best for pie, which I'll make soon. And the sweet ones are just for snacking, or adding to the pie for extra filler. So excited! So yummy.
We had lunch at a little place in Sister Bay, WI called the Mission Grille where I had a grilled cheese with tomato and pesto. I've been there once before and it's been delicious both times. It was a beautiful day to be by the lake yesterday.
Tonight, a ladies' night ensues for a majority of the girls at the bookstore. One of them is leaving us very soon to go back to college, so we're out to a local Irish pub for some yummy ale... or whatever. ;)
Happy summer! We're in the thick of it now.
One never knows what the weather is going to do this time of year in Wisconsin. Spring here is a little bit like my life plan: it doesn't really exist. The season sometimes (like this year) takes an age to finally meet us with green leaves on the trees and warm thunderstorms, but by the time it does, it's practically summer already. But with what little sliver of the season does exist, I've been taking in as much as possible.
Last night marked the third in a recent string of summer-please-come-soon backyard fires with good friends. Some fires have burned much longer into the night than last night, however I still woke up this morning late and thinking that I needed to do something to make today a productive one. Something about losing those few hours of daylight in the morning kicks me into high gear in the afternoon. I figured cherry pie seemed as yummy an opener as any to the chronicle of my adventures in my small part of the world. So I drove out to grab the only ingredient I was missing: eggs, along with a quick stop in at the local Goodwill (where I found a pair of pleated trousers and a brand new Urban Outfitters top, SCORE!), and thus began the mini adventure that is making a pie.
The jar of Wood Orchard Market pie filling inspired me to get crackin'. A day trip last Saturday with my mom to a shepherd's market, along with a few shops, included a stop at the Wood Orchard Market, which we've seen many times throughout the years and had never stopped into. We left with fresh asparagus, pie cherries, raw honey, and cherry caramels. Talk about decadent! Of course, I couldn't very well let that enticing jar of cherries sit around forever. Today was the day. And because I will be eating half of this pie myself (yay!), I went for my trusty Perfect Light Desserts by Nick Malgieri and David Joachim for the crust recipe (I've included it below).
There is something cathartic about baking -- and cooking also, although I tend to bake more often. I love to follow recipes, and then mess with them when I come up with something new. Cookbooks contain their own sort of magic, imparted to me from page to flour-dusted page, and when I pull the latest creation out of the oven, it's the best kind of reward. Nothing beats homemade!
I'm ever so much more inspired when I can get my hands on local ingredients and stop at the markets and shops in town to get whatever I need. Wisconsin, being the winter-summer state it is, gives me half a year or so to really do it up right with all the local ingredients, so one has to start somewhere. Door County is famous for its cherries -- the tart pie kind, and although this year's crop is only just starting to show blossoms on trees, there is always plentiful frozen from last season, not to mention just about any kind of cherry product you could think of: salsa, butter, jams, candies... (oh yum).
It's amazing to consider how basic, simple ingredients that we take for granted, such as flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and a pinch of salt can be transformed infinitely. Before:
...and after. The hardest part might be waiting for it to cool...
Now for the best part! How to make it:
I don't have a food processor, although I included the recipe per the book here for the dough. I have a small KitchenAid mixer which worked fine for chopping up the butter and distributing it evenly enough through the dough. For the pie, you'll need to make a double batch of this: one for the bottom layer and one for the top.
Sweet Pastry Dough
from Perfect Light Desserts by Malgieri and Joachim
- Makes about 9oz of dough, enough for 9in pie crust, about 8 servings
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into 6 pieces
1 large egg
1 tablespoon cold water
1. Combine all the dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Pulse 3 or 4 times to mix.
2. Add the butter and pulse about 10 or 12 times to mix the butter in finely.
3. Add the egg and water and pulse repeatedly until the dough forms a ball.
4. Invert the bowl to a lightly floured work surface and carefully remove the blade.
5. Form the dough into a disk and wrap it in plastic.
6. Refrigerate the dough for several hours or up to 3 days. You may also roll out the dough immediately; it will be a little soft but entirely capable of being rolled.
7. Before you use the refrigerated dough, unwrap it and place it on a floured work surface. Gently knead the dough to render it malleable, then form it into a disk again before rolling.
For the pie:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F with the rack at the lowest level in the oven.
Roll one half of the dough into an 11-inch disk, then fold it in half and lay it onto the bottom of a 9-inch pie pan. Pour in the pie filling. (It's worth mentioning that there are many ways to make your own pie filling from fresh berries, any of which will work wonderfully with this pie crust.) Roll the second bit of dough into a 10-inch square and use a pizza cutter to slice 1-inch wide strips. Moisten the bottom of the strips with water and lay across the pie in a cross-hatch pattern, one layer on top of the other.
Bake the pie for about 45 minutes or until the filling is bubbling and the crust looks baked through. Cool on a rack, and serve when cool and the filling has set.
