CHERRY PIE

There is a first time for everything. A first time for mistakenly attending a wedding reception of complete strangers on a sweltering afternoon and a first time for making a pretty cherry pie. The one gets you feeling hot, sweaty and silly while the other one gets you feeling warm, fuzzy and cheery. I did both this day Sunday. I don't have to tell you which was the better one.

I've had a few questions on how I attended the wrong wedding reception. Well folks, my husband had misread the date of the invitation. (Next time I'll read the invitations). So we went on the wrong day but at the correct place. I got all dressed up just so I could sweat in my nice fancy clothes. Unnecessarily. At the least we provided plenty of amusement for our boys...ho ho ho.


Cherries are so expensive at 56 ringgit per kilo. I had bought a box which was 250 grams at 13.99 ringgit. So I had some adjusting to do for the filling when I decided to do Shirley's of Kokken69 cherry pie recipe from her lovely blog. But it was a perfect amount for  the size I made.Which was a sweet 6 inch pie.


The crust however I had followed largely and it turned out light and flaky just as Shirley had described. Lovely.

The recipe ~ from Shirley of Kokken69 ~

The filling recipe to which I had made some adjustments because I like a pie fruit filling a little soft and juicy as opposed to somewhat raw. So I cooked it.


250 gm fresh cherries
3 T sugar, according to how sweet or less sweet you want it
Juice of 1 lime
1 T cornflour
4-5 T water


Bring all the ingredients together in a small pan or pot. Make sure the cornflour is dissolved. Stir constantly. Bring to a simmer and allow to simmer until the syrup is thick, the cherries a little soft and and the whole looks juicy ans syrupy. It doesn't take long at all. Just 6-7 minutes or less. Adjust for sweetness. I had put too little sugar and I found it to be not sweet enough.

 The crust ~

165 plain flour
113.5 gm chilled butter
1-2 T iced water
pinch of salt
granulated sugar to sprinkle


Sift flour into a medium bowl. Add the salt and mix well. Grate the butter into the bowl. Just use your fingers lightly to mix the butter and flour up evenly. I did not crumble the mixture until it became fine breadcrumbs because I wanted the pastry to be more flaky. Add iced water and stir the mixture and then using your fingers bring the dough together into a firm ball. Do not knead so that the butter does not melt and the gluten is not worked up. Too much kneading will make a tough pastry. 


Once the pastry comes together, chill it if necessary and then roll out in between 2 pieces of baking paper to 1/8 inch thick. Cut a round slightly larger than the pie pan and then lift the pastry and line the pan. Cut the edges to neaten.


At this point I beat an egg and brushed the pastry with egg just so that it will not get sogged (I invent my own words just in case you haven't noticed or if you're new to this blog) by the cherry pie filling.


Top with the cherry filling and refrigerate while you prepare the top crust.


Gather up the pieces of dough into a ball, roll out to 1/8 inch thick and cut strips as I did or thinner if you like. Lay the strips over the filling as you like, latticed or not, press the edges to seal, neaten the edges by running a knife around the edge of the pan  and then sprinkle granulated sugar over the top. 


Bake 30- 35 minutes at 170 C.