- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
- | single page
Every summer when the sour cherry appears, my culinary nerves start firing. I could eat my weight in pie, cherry pie, that is, baked with those little red gems with the mouth-puckering taste. It is a cornerstone of my diet. Wavy shortcrust pastry top, sweet-tart filling, more crust, the outside hiding the oozing, thick and bubbly juices that lie within.
The craving arrives with the force of a cattle prod. In the early stages, I just give in, buy up what I can find, and go home and bake a pie.
I know sour cherries are a pain to pit. Whatever. Consider yourself lucky to find them at all because farmers are expecting a fraction of their normal crop this summer because of buds lost to frost. Though I am a lover of the fresh cherry, this season I have no disputes with the quick frozen sort. That pie still puts nearly any truck stop one to shame, containing more goodness and deliciousness than the sum of its parts.
Each year, the vast majority of the crop ends up not in the grocery store or the farmers market, but in cans and jars as pie filling. Call me a food snob, but I have never been able to rise above a deep and irrational prejudice against a pie baked with the gooey canned stuff. A pie with a canned filling is a gazillion miles away from the excellent one I can make at home or find at a diner far off the interstate.
That pie is the real deal, the culinary destiny of the Montmorency cherry baked in a showstopping irresistible flaky double crust. The top is as smooth as a confectioners' toffee candy; the edges are perfectly pinched; and the crust is stiff enough to hang together from the runny juices of the baked cherries inside.
Smell, that loyal sentry, warns me of the incredible sour-smelling sweetness. With full knowledge there could be pits, I open my mouth and close my eyes. My first bite encounters a brash sweet-tart flavor. And it lasts, even as my summer appetite picks up momentum. If I were blessed with a quick metabolism, I'd cut a second slice before I polished off the first.
I would defend this statement to the death: The Montmorency holds up better than any other cherry you can possibly find to bake in a pie.
Even if yours flops just a little, the results will be startling and good. And if you have more cherries than you know what to do with, make sour cherry compote, a simple chutney, a cobbler or a crisp. By the time you're tired of all that, the all-too-brief cherry season will be gone and fall will be here.
Cherry pie
Prep: 35 minutes
Chill: 30 minutes
Bake: 50-60 minutes
Makes: 1 double-crust pie, 8 servings
Note: This recipe is adapted from one by Anne Willan, founder of École de Cuisine La Varenne in Paris.
Pastry crust:
2 3/4 cups flour (12 ounces)
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon plus a pinch of salt
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) vegetable shortening, chilled
The craving arrives with the force of a cattle prod. In the early stages, I just give in, buy up what I can find, and go home and bake a pie.
I know sour cherries are a pain to pit. Whatever. Consider yourself lucky to find them at all because farmers are expecting a fraction of their normal crop this summer because of buds lost to frost. Though I am a lover of the fresh cherry, this season I have no disputes with the quick frozen sort. That pie still puts nearly any truck stop one to shame, containing more goodness and deliciousness than the sum of its parts.
Each year, the vast majority of the crop ends up not in the grocery store or the farmers market, but in cans and jars as pie filling. Call me a food snob, but I have never been able to rise above a deep and irrational prejudice against a pie baked with the gooey canned stuff. A pie with a canned filling is a gazillion miles away from the excellent one I can make at home or find at a diner far off the interstate.
That pie is the real deal, the culinary destiny of the Montmorency cherry baked in a showstopping irresistible flaky double crust. The top is as smooth as a confectioners' toffee candy; the edges are perfectly pinched; and the crust is stiff enough to hang together from the runny juices of the baked cherries inside.
Smell, that loyal sentry, warns me of the incredible sour-smelling sweetness. With full knowledge there could be pits, I open my mouth and close my eyes. My first bite encounters a brash sweet-tart flavor. And it lasts, even as my summer appetite picks up momentum. If I were blessed with a quick metabolism, I'd cut a second slice before I polished off the first.
I would defend this statement to the death: The Montmorency holds up better than any other cherry you can possibly find to bake in a pie.
Even if yours flops just a little, the results will be startling and good. And if you have more cherries than you know what to do with, make sour cherry compote, a simple chutney, a cobbler or a crisp. By the time you're tired of all that, the all-too-brief cherry season will be gone and fall will be here.
Cherry pie
Prep: 35 minutes
Chill: 30 minutes
Bake: 50-60 minutes
Makes: 1 double-crust pie, 8 servings
Note: This recipe is adapted from one by Anne Willan, founder of École de Cuisine La Varenne in Paris.
Pastry crust:
2 3/4 cups flour (12 ounces)
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon plus a pinch of salt
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) vegetable shortening, chilled
