Eli Cooks » cherry

Cherry Hand Pies

Eli — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:00:33 +0000

As soon as I publicly admitted that I’m not very good at making pie crusts and don’t have a recipe I really like, I knew I had to change that. (Truth be told, and bacon apple pie aside, I’ve avoided pies for years because of my crust-phobia.) Then I heard these cherries calling to me from across the farmer’s market. There were just two boxes of bright red Michigan sour cherries sitting among the bings, and I heard them calling just in time to watch one leave with someone else. My fate was sealed. I quickly swooped in to grab the last box. Afterall, what better way to end a pie drought than with cherry pie? Now I just needed a crust.

I turned to The Pie and Pastry Bible as a likely place to find a good pie crust. I quickly settled on the Flaky Cream Cheese crust, and as I was skimming the instructions, a thought came to me. I’ve known about the food processor method for pie crusts, but I’ve never owned a food processor, so I’ve just discounted it. But what I do have is a mini food processor chopper thing. (Something like this.) Why couldn’t I just do the pie crust in that? Sure, it’s small, but maybe I could do the crust in batches. And you know what? It worked. And was surprisingly easy at that.

The crust came out tender AND flaky. It rained little flakes of pie crust with every bite, just like a good pie crust should. Now that I have a good recipe, I need to start making up for lost time. Luckily, I still have a good bit of summer left to make more fruit pies. (I’ve always liked fruit pies best.)

And I’m glad I gave the hand pies a whirl as well. They’re like what a Hostess pie would be if it wasn’t made entirely of shortening and chemicals. Which is to say delicious, portable and perfectly sized. Great for a picnic or a quick breakfast, if you’re so inclined. (Hey, they’re full of fruit, so that makes them good for you, right?)

Cherry Hand Pies
I got to try out my new pastry cloth on this recipe, and it really does make rolling out dough MUCH easier. At $6, it’s well worth the money.

Flaky Cream Cheese Crust (recipe below)
1 1/2 lb (about 1 quart) fresh sour cherries, pitted
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Mix the cherries, sugar, cornstarch, salt and any cherry juice. Set aside.

Roll out the pastry crust to about 1/8″ thick. Use a ring cutter to cut the pastry into 4 to 5″ circles. (I used the largest ring from my set of cutters, which is 4 7/16″.)

Transfer the pastry circles to a baking sheet and spoon a bit of the cherry mixture onto each circle. About 6-8 cherries will fit on one circle, if you want it to close.

Fold one side of the circle over onto the other side to make a half circle. Use a fork to crimp and seal the edges. (If a bit of juice leaks out, don’t worry too much. It will bake up into a chewy/crispy cherry carmel. Just peel it off the pan and eat it.) Cut a few slits into each pie to allow the steam to escape.

Bake the pies for 30 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the juice is thick and bubbling out of the slits.

Flaky Cream Cheese Pastry Crust
Adapted from The Pie and Pastry Bible

8 Tbsp unsalted butter, cold
1 1/3 cup AP flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking powder
3 oz cream cheese, cold
1 1/2 Tbsp cold water
1 1/2 Tsp cider vinegar

Freeze the butter for about 30 minutes, until very firm. Toss the butter, flour, salt and baking powder into a chopper or food processor and pulse until combined. The texture should be like sand.

Remove about half the flour/butter and put in a bowl in the fridge.* Add half the cream cheese to the chopper and pulse until it resembles coarse cornmeal. Add half the water and half the vinegar and pulse until just combined. Put this half of the dough in the fridge and repeat with the other half.

Once the dough is made, flatten both pieces, stack them and fold the stack over on itself. (This will layer the two pieces in case there are any inconsistencies.) Shape the dough into a disc, wrap and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, at least an hour and up to a few days.

*Since I don’t have a full-sized food processor, the instructions are written for a small chopper. If you have a food processor, by all means, use it and do it all in one batch.

Bruise Pie…errr…Clafouti

Eli — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:14:42 +0000

Let’s just get this out in the open right off the bat. Yes, this clafouti looks like a rather nasty bruise. Between the dark cherries sticking up above the surface and the cherry juice pooled around them…well, I’ve definitely seen better looking desserts. But let me assure you, it TASTES nothing like a bruise. I considered not posting this at all because of the look, but it is very tasty. So…after that rousing endorsement, how can you do anything but rush out to make this? Indeed.

Clafouti is a traditional French dessert that falls somewhere between a custard and a cake, although much closer to the custard end of things. It’s not the most beautiful of desserts, but it’s dead easy and quite tasty.

Clafouti a la Liqueur
Adapted from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking

The original recipe calls for kirsch or cognac, but I’ve always been a fan of bourbon in desserts…and in my glass. You could use just about any flavorful liquor in place of the bourbon. You could also sub out the cherries for another fruit. Golden plums would be delicious, and also look less like a bruise.

1/4 cup bourbon (I used Bookers)
1/4 cup light brown sugar
3 cups pitted whole bing cherries

bourbon from the cherries
~ 1 cup milk (enough to make 1 1/4 cup when combined with the cherry bourbon)
1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt

Mix together the bourbon, brown sugar and cherries and let them sit for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Drain the cherries and reserve the bourbon/juices.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Spread out the cherries in the bottom of a baking dish. Toss everything but the cherries in a blender and blend. Pour the batter over the cherries and bake for about one hour, until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cherry Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake

Eli — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:29:47 +0000

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a near-obsession with upside down cakes. I’ve got a few stand-bys that I make several times a summer – which means they’re REALLY good since there are few thing I actually make twice. But I’m always on the lookout for something new. Well, this is something new and probably a soon-to-be-standby as well.

It did take a bit of work to halve and pit all the cherries by hand. (And made a mess of my counter in the process.) But it was worth it in the end. Still, it brings me one step closer to thinking maybe a cherry pitter is a one-use gadget that’s worth its space.

I was very pleased at the way the sweet cherries and balsamic vinegar played off each other, and the cornmeal cake was great too. I tend to prefer more fruit in my upside-down cakes than most recipes call for, so I upped the fruit, but I’d probably up it a bit more the next time around. Still, I have no complaints with it as is.

Cherry Cornmeal Upside Down Cake

Adapted from Bon Appétit, June 2008

The original recipe called for whole milk, but I used skim because, well, that’s all I had at the time. It was great as is and I can’t imagine whole milk would have made it much better.

Makes one 10″ cake

1/2 cup + 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
3/8 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
4 cups fresh Bing cherries, pitted (I halved mine, but whole is fine too)
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal (preferably stone-ground medium grind)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, separated
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup skim milk

Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350°F. Combine 6 Tbsp butter with brown sugar and vinegar in 10- to 11-inch ovenproof skillet with 2-inch-high sides. Stir over medium heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. Increase heat to high; add cherries and bring to boil. Remove from heat.

Whisk flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat 1/2 cup butter in large bowl. Add sugar; beat until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with milk in 2 additions each, beating just until blended and occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in another medium bowl until whites are stiff but not dry. Using rubber spatula, fold 1/4 of whites into batter to lighten slightly. Fold in remaining whites in 3 additions (batter will be thick). Spoon batter over cherries in skillet, then spread evenly with offset spatula to cover cherries.

Bake cake until top is golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool in skillet on rack 5 minutes. Run spatula around edges of cake to loosen. Place large serving platter upside down atop skillet. Using pot holders or oven mitts, firmly hold platter and skillet together and invert. Leave skillet atop cake 5 minutes. Remove skillet. If necessary, rearrange any cherries that may have become dislodged. Let cake cool at least 45 minutes. Cut cake into wedges and serve slightly warm or at room temperature.