TBB - Sour Cherry Pie (Pi Day)
Patricia @ ButterYum
Welcome to week 16 of the Alpha Bakers bake-a-long, an online project where a group of food bloggers bake our way through The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Most of the recipes made during this project will not be shared, but I will post my commentary followed by a full photo tutorial.
This week's selection - Sour Cherry Pie (Pi Day). A ruby red cherry filling cloaked in a lattice patterned cream cheese enriched pastry.
Special ingredients and/or equipment needed - sour cherries, 9-inch Perfect Pie Plate, scalloped pastry cutter.
Optional ingredients and/or equipment suggested - digital scale, pastry cloth, aluminum pie shield, expandable cake ring.
How does it taste - Excellent. Probably the best cherry pie I've ever eaten.
How does it look - Beautiful, despite the fact that I inadvertently didn't set my timer and my pie baked a few minutes longer than intended.
Level of difficulty - Easy.
Were the directions clear - For the most part.
What would I do differently next time - Make sure my timer is working properly so my crust doesn't over bake around the edges. Aside from that, it was perfect.
Special thanks - special thanks goes out to Alpha Baker Joan who surprised me with 2 bags of sour cherries. THANK YOU JOAN!
Next up - Luxury Oatmeal Cookies.
Okay, here's my photo tutorial.
The filling is super easy to make. I used frozen sour cherries. Just dumped them into a pot with sugar and cornstarch. Boil for 1 full minute. That's all.
Transfer the cherry filling to a container and allow it to cool completely.
Then stir in almond extract. Rose also suggested adding 2 tablespoons of Michelle's Miracle Cherry Concentrate. I didn't have any, but I did have Boyajian Natural Cherry Flavor so I used a little of that. It's super concentrated so I only used 1 teaspoon.
For the crust we need to cut butter into 1/4-inch cubes and freeze them for at least 30 minutes.
We need to freeze the flour, baking powder, and salt too. Place them in a zipper bag keep them dry.
The cream cheese should be cubed and chilled (not frozen).
In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour mixture and chilled cream cheese. Process until it looks like this.
Then add the frozen butter and pulse until the butter cubes are smaller than the size of a pea.
Add heavy cream and a little apple cider vinegar.
Pulse again until the mixture begins to clump.
Place the crust mixture back into the zipper bag and compress the outside of the bag until the crumbly mixture sticks together. Then divide the dough into two portions. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 45 minutes before rolling.
On a floured counter or pastry cloth, roll one portion of dough evenly and cut it into a 12-inch diameter disk.
Save the scraps to add to the other portion of dough.
Time to place the dough disk into the pie plate. Be sure to brush away any excess flour.
Place the crust into the pie plate. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 3 hours.
Fill the crust with the cherry filling.
Roll the second portion of dough into an 11x12-inch rectangle and cut lattice strips using a scalloped pastry cutter. The strips should be about 3/4-inch wide. We'll need 14 of them in all.
Place 7 lattice strips, evenly spaced, facing the same direction, on top of the filling. Fold back every other strip half way to begin the lattice weaving process. There are step-by-step photos on page 203 of the book.
Lattice weave done. Tuck the loose ends under the bottom crust and press to seal. Quick tip - if any lattice strips break, hide the broken ends under strips that cross over on top. You'd never know from the looks of it that I had 3 pastry strips that were either either too short or broken.
I have a small cherry pastry cutter so I cut a cherry out of the scrap dough.
Brush the dough with a little heavy cream.
I finish all my pies with a sprinkling of sugar. In this case I used turbinado sugar. Cover the pie with plastic wrap and chill for 45 minutes before baking.
Preheat oven with a baking stone on the bottom rack and bake pie as directed.
Cool and serve. This pie is phenomenally delicious. I hope you'll give it a try.
links to more alpha baker photo tutorials
-
2016
- Dec 7, 2016 TBB - Luxury Chocolate Buttercrunch Toffee
- Sep 26, 2016 TBB - Bourbon (Whiskey) Pecan Butter Balls
- May 11, 2016 TBB - Blueberry Buckle
- Apr 5, 2016 TBB - Meringue Birch Twigs
- Jan 26, 2016 TBB - Lemon Almond Cheesecake
-
2015
- Nov 19, 2015 The Hazelnut Praline Cookies that Never Were
- Sep 1, 2015 TBB - Flaky Cream Cheese Scones
- Aug 23, 2015 TBB - Woody's Black and White Brownies
- Jul 1, 2015 TBB - Praline Meringue Ice Cream Sandwiches
- Jun 23, 2015 Ricotta Loaf - The Bread Bible
- Jun 4, 2015 TBB - French Orange Cream Tart
- May 19, 2015 TBB - Double Chocolate Oriolos
- May 15, 2015 Touch of Grace Biscuits - The Bread Bible
- May 7, 2015 TBB - Blu-Rhu Mini Pies
- Apr 27, 2015 TBB - Lemon Jammies
- Apr 2, 2015 Pita Pizzas - The Bread Bible
- Mar 22, 2015 TBB - Luxury Oatmeal Cookies
- Mar 15, 2015 TBB - Sour Cherry Pie (Pi Day)
- Mar 9, 2015 TBB - Caramel Buns
- Mar 4, 2015 TBB - Hamantaschen (Purim)
- Feb 23, 2015 TBB - Lemon Posset Alma
- Feb 15, 2015 TBB - Chocolate Pavarotti with Wicked Good Ganache
- Feb 11, 2015 TBB - Golden Orange Panettone with Chocolate Sauce
- Feb 9, 2015 Panettone Delay
- Feb 2, 2015 TBB - Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread
- Jan 26, 2015 TBB - Gingersnaps
- Jan 19, 2015 Biga Fail
- Jan 12, 2015 TBB - Black and Blueberry Pie
- Jan 5, 2015 TBB - Chocolate Cuddle Cake
-
2014
- Dec 29, 2014 TBB - Frozen Pecan Tart
- Dec 22, 2014 TBB - Almond Coffee Crisps
- Dec 15, 2014 TBB - The Ischler
- Dec 8, 2014 TBB - English Dried Fruit Cake
- Dec 1, 2014 TBB - Kouigns Amann (kween ah-mahn)
- Nov 5, 2014 Rose's Alpha Bakers - Intro