Cherry pie. Almost as American as apple pie.
Just the word "pie" conjures up an image of a warm, buttery pie sitting on a window sill to cool while a light breeze wafts the aroma about the house (or apartment).
Maybe historically this was the best way to cool down pastries, but I have to wonder how many smashed pies resulted from teetering off of unstable window sills across this great nation. Gravity can be a real witch sometimes.
It was late summer this year, and at work we were having a bake sale to benefit the homeless in Westchester County. You would think that one of the top 10 richest counties in the U.S. wouldn't have such a big homeless problem... but you'd be wrong!
I decided to make cherry pie for my contribution, even though pie itself is kind of awkward to dole out at a bake sale. The best ones are obviously gooey and spill their contents everywhere as soon as you remove a slice.
"Kyle, why didn't you just make something else?" you might ask. That's because you, the readers, are incredibly rational people (read: I am not). More importantly, huge bags of cherries were two for five at the store! Hooray for cheap summer produce!
My solution: two-inch cherry pies. Just like Mama used to make, if your mama baked everything to 1/12th the scale of normal baked goods.
Ingredients:
3/4 c dark brown sugar
4 tbsp cornstarch
5 c cherries, pitted and chopped
3 tbsp molasses
1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground clove
1 stick of unsalted butter, cold
5 tbsp Ice water
2-inch brownie tin
Time commitment: 30min inactive, 30min active, 10min hyperactive
Estimated cost: about $10 for 20 mini pies
First thing to do is to make the crust. Take a cold stick of butter and a pastry blender and go to town cutting up the butter into tiny balls of fat. Don't let the butter warm up or else your crust might not come out flaky!
Mix the flour in spices in a bowl and subsequently blend these ingredients into the butter with the pastry blender or with your hands. Once combined, shape the dough into a large ball and wrap it in wax paper. Place the dough in the fridge for 30min.
Next, make the pie filling by painstakingly cutting all of those delectable cherries in half and removing the pits. Pits will not contribute positively to the gooey consistency of your pie.
Coarsely chop up half of the cherries by hand and put the other half in a food processor to be lightly pureed. This will give you nice a mix of textures throughout your pie filling ranging from chunky to slushy.
Put the all of the cherries in a saucepan and stir in the molasses. Heat of high for about 5 minutes to extract all of those cherry juices. In a separate bowl, mix the brown sugar and cornstarch together until they are well combined. Then, add the sugar starch mix into the bubbling cherries and boil for an additional minute, stirring more than occasionally. Remove the pie filling from heat and allow to cool completely.
Take your chilled pie dough out of the fridge and roll it out into a single layer about 1/4 inch thick. Find a random kitchen implement in your home in the shape of a circle, such as a filter inside a stovetop espresso maker (or a cookie cutter, coffee cup or glass). Use said random implement to cut small circles in your rolled out dough, pressing these into a thin layer along the walls of your 2-inch brownie tin. Re-roll the dough and repeat until all of the dough has been used up. Or until you get tired.
Make sure to prick the bottom and sides of each shell with a fork before baking (a process called "docking") to prevent puffing and blistering of the crust. Bake the pie shells for 20 minutes at 350F. Then, remove the shells, spoon in the cherry filling and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
Throughout the baking process, I found it highly amusing to sing "sweet cherry pie" to the tune of "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond. I don't know many of the words to that song, so I basically just sang the chorus over and over again. I'm sure that didn't annoy Jenn.
Good pies never seemed so good.
Happy Crafting!
