Posted By Anna on November 20, 2009

November isn’t cherry season, but you can still serve cherry pie in the fall. The trick is finding a recipe that makes good use of the alternatives – canned and frozen. Mixing cherries with raspberries is one way of making a canned cherry pie more exciting. While you won’t get the firm texture of fresh, cherry-season cherries, the cherry-raspberry combo has such a great flavor that combined with a good crust, will make most cherry pie lovers happy. Or at least the ones around here.

Thanksgiving Cherry-Berry Pie

1 unbaked pie crust (see directions below) plus second unbaked crust for latticing.

Filling:
1 (14 to 16 ounce) can pitted tart cherries, drained, liquid reserved**
1 (12 oz) package frozen raspberries, thawed, drained, juice reserved
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoon softened regular butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Combine half cup of cherry liquid and half cup of the raspberry juice to make one cup combined. Set the juice and fruit aside.

Combine sugars and cornstarch in a small saucepan. Whisk in the 1 cup of fruit juice and cook over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir 2 minutes more. Remove from heat. Stir in almond extract, vanilla and soft butter. Stir in drained cherries and raspberries.

Fill pie shell with cherry-berry mixture. Roll out second portion of dough into a 12 inch circle and cut into 1 inch strips. Arrange in a lattice pattern over cherry filling, weaving strips crosswise over and under lengthwise strips. Trim pastry strips even with edge of bottom crust. Fold bottom pastry over lattice strips and seal. Flute edge.

Shield edges of pie with foil to prevent excess browning if you feel you need too. I didn’t. Set pie on a baking sheet and bake for 45 to 50 minutes until crust is golden brown. Remove foil strip during final 15 minutes of baking time.

Makes 8 servings

Category: Fruit Pies | 8 Comments »
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Posted By Anna on November 20, 2009

This week I’ve been practicing my pie crust making technique. Even though I know the basic rules of tender crust – use cold ingredients and don’t over work the dough, I still run into problems. My dough usually sticks because I don’t use enough flour for dusting surfaces, I’m not good at crimping, and I always make a mess. I also jump from recipe to recipe, but I think that is a good thing because it’s led me to some of the best. A lot of basic pie crust recipes just aren’t that good.

One of my favorite recipes in the last few weeks was Dawn Viola’s. The crust that goes with her apple pie is incredibly buttery and tastes almost like a pie surrounded by crispy croissant dough. I tried recreating that crust and had good luck with fruit pies, but in other situations, like blind baking, the crust seemed almost too buttery.

This is a second crust I came up with. It’s similar to Dawn’s, but with a little less fat in the dough. And in this one, you can use regular butter rather than European. So this my favorite pie crust at the moment. I still need more practice on crimping, latticing and even rolling the dough out just right, but I do like how this crusts tastes.

Also, if you’re new to crust making I highly recommend watching some videos before proceeding. Here’s one from Epicurious that’s pretty good. I usually use my food processor, but doing it by hand will give you a good idea of how the dough is supposed to look and feel if you’re just starting out.

One last note. I like rolling my dough out between sheets of non-stick foil. The only brand I know of is “Reynold’s Release” which is why I mention the brand. Parchment paper is a good choice too. Or you can roll it out on just a floured surface. I just like having something between the dough and my counter.

Favorite Pie Crust

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour plus extra for dusting (11. 5 oz plus extra)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut up
4 tablespoons shortening
1 tablespoon vinegar, chilled plus 1 teaspoon vanilla
4-6 tablespoons ice water (I’ve needed 6)

Combine flour, salt and sugar in a bowl and put them in the freezer for about 20 minutes. Put food processor bowl and blade in freezer as well.

Assemble food processor as usual and dump in the flour mixture. Pulse a few times to mix. Add cold butter and shortening and pulse 10-15 times or until mixture is coarse. Add the vinegar/vanilla mixture and pulse to mix. Add water two tablespoons at a time, pulsing until mixture is moist enough so that when you pinch it together. It should still look pretty dry at this point.

Turn the dough onto a work surface and shape into two portions. It should go from a raggedy mess to two raggedy disks – they should hold together, though. If they don’t, you didn’t add enough water. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour to rest the dough. This is an important step. Don’t skip the resting.

When ready to use, sprinkle some flour over a big sheet of nonstick foil like Reynold’s Release. Set the disk of dough on the foil and let it sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Sprinkle top with more flour, then lay another big sheet of Release foil over the dough and roll out from the center to the edge one stroke at a time, going around clockwise, to make about a 13 inch round. Now it’s time to put it in the pie dish. I like invert the 9 inch pie plate or tin over round and flip, but you can also fold the circle in half, lift it up, then press it into the pie dish. Press pie dough into pan, fold edges inward and crimp.

Category: Pie Crust Recipes | 9 Comments »
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Posted By Anna on November 19, 2009

I’m in the midst of more pie baking and hope to have a good one for you tomorrow. For today, here’s a cookie adapted from the current issue of Every Day Food. This recipe was excellent and the bittersweet chocolate and tangy cranberry combo hit the spot.

Double Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

16 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (divided use)
1 cup all purpose flour (4.5 oz)
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon coarse salt (I used regular)
4 oz unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt 10 oz of the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Let melted chocolate cool slightly.

Mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Cream the butter and both sugars with an electric mixer. Beat in eggs, followed by the vanilla. Beat in the melted chocolate. By hand or with lowest speed of mixer, stir in the flour mixture. Makes sure the batter isn’t too warm from the chocolate (hopefully you let it cool), then stir in the cranberries and the remaining 6 oz chopped chocolate.

Scoop the dough up by quarter cupfuls or super-heaping tablespoons and space mounds of dough 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake one sheet at a time on center rack for 15-17 minutes or until edges are dry. Tops should crack a little. Let cool on cookie sheets for about 3 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool. Makes about 15.

Category: Chocolate | 6 Comments »
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Posted By Anna on November 18, 2009

Yesterday I made two pies for a school event — one was pecan and the other was sweet potato. The pies were to be turned in today, but I had a meeting with a flooring guy and couldn’t drop them off myself. Todd had to do it for me, which means I don’t know if they were any good — especially the sweet potato because I used a recipe I’d never made, which in hindsight was kind of a dumb thing to do, but I thought this one from Epicurious sounded good.

So without having tasted the pie (Booo!!!!), I can tell you it baked up very smooth, didn’t call for much sugar (a problem with some sweet potato pie recipes) and had some melted butter in the filling to round everything out. And finally, the source of the recipe is Ruth Reichl’s book Comfort me with Apples which in itself is comforting since all of RR’s recipes are good.

And here’s another tip I got from Louise. If you ever need to top a pie with whipped cream and you know this pie will be sitting out for a while, there’s a stabilizer you can buy called “Whip it”. I finally got to use my “Whip it” today and it worked perfectly. Or at least I think it did. It didn’t add any odd flavors to the whipped cream.

Category: Pumpkin and Potato Pies | 11 Comments »
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Posted By Anna on November 17, 2009

I’ve been busy today making pies for a school function. I’d planned on making just one pecan pie, but I found this sweet potato pie that looked so good, I decided to make one of each. The sweet potato pie is cooling and may or may not be worth posting, so for now here’s the pecan pie recipe.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know I jump from one pecan pie recipe to another. It’s a bad habit, but it wasn’t always that way. Before I started pie-hopping, I was famous in my town for this one pecan pie. Okay, not really “famous in my town” but a few people said this pie was really good and started rumors that I made good pecan pie all because they tried this one. So gosh, I’m not sure why I started looking for better recipes. Oh wait, I know why. Because I met this one girl who made much better pecan pie and have been trying to top hers ever since. Then the other day it dawned on me that her pie wasn’t all that great anyway and I was just really hungry when I tried it. So I’m going back to this pie forever and will never try another pecan pie recipe again.

Old Favorite Browned Butter Pecan Pie

1 ½ cups pecan halves
1 (4 oz) stick butter (regular or unsalted)
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup (or use ½ dark plus ½ light)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 unbaked pie shell – use homemade or refrigerated

Lay 1 cup of the pecan halves on a cookie sheet and bake at 400 for about 6-8 minutes or until toasted. Let cool, then chop so that you have 1 cup chopped toasted pecans and about a half cup of pecan halves (these will be the border).

Melt the butter in saucepan set over medium heat and cook it just until it starts to brown. Remove from heat and let it cool for about 10 minutes.

Whisk the eggs lightly in a large mixing bowl. Whisk in the sugar, corn syrup, vanilla and salt. Pour in the semi-cooled browned butter.

Put the chopped pecans in the unbaked pie shell and pour the filling over the top. Use the remaining 1/2 cup pecan halves to make a border. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 325 degrees F. and bake for another 35 minutes. Remove from oven. Pecan should still be fairly jiggly, but will set as it cools. Let it cool at room temperature for a few hours.

Category: Pecan Pies | 35 Comments »
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