Cherry Pie Recipe

CRUST

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

8 T (1 stick) butter, cold and cubed

1/2 t salt

1/2 t sugar

2-4 T ice water

FILLING

20 oz pitted cherries OR 2 1/4 c fresh pitted cherries + 1 c cherry juice

1 c sugar

1/3 c all-purpose flour

1/8 t salt

2 t butter

1/4 t almond/vanilla

Grease a pie pan. For crust, combine flour, salt and sugar, add butter and crumble until mixture resembles coarse meal, with pea-sized pieces of butter. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time until mixture just begins to stick together. Place chunks of dough in pan and press until flat. Chill crust. Preheat oven to 425. Combine sugar, flour and salt in saucepan. Add cherry liquid and bring to boil. Simmer 5 min. Once thick, add butter, almond/vanilla and cherries. Refrigerate and put cooled filling in pan. Bake 30-35 min.

Notes:

• Grease the dish way more than you think. This is good because 1) there's no way anything will stick, especially in the corners, and 2) you'll get that lovely buttery crust!
• When making tart pastry, if butter is starting to melt put it in the freezer until you need more. You want it to stay as cold as possible.
• When placing tart pastry into pie pan, grab chunks and press until flat. Don't spend too much time on one part, or the heat from your fingers will start to melt the butter! You want to still see chunks of butter, as this will make the crust lovely and flaky.
• If using cherries from a can, use the juice in can as "cherry liquid". If using fresh cherries, create this "liquid" by squeezing 10-15 cherries in a 1 cup measuring cup and adding water.

Cherry Pie

We bought a big bag of cherries at the store thinking that we would eat them for lunch over the course of the week.

This did not happen.

By the end of the week, I began to worry about the giant amount of fruit in the fridge which had not been eaten. What better way to utilize cherries, I thought, than make a cherry pie?

One thing about this type of pie is that it is very, very messy....and cherry juice can stain even your countertops. So when preparing to pit/juice ANY fruit (esp. ones with deep coloring) make sure to:

1) not wear anything you love and

2) lay down a layer of paper towels on the surface you're working on, and keep a bunch handy for your hands. They'll look quite bloody by the time you're done.

If you're working from a recipe which uses canned cherries, then no worries! You simply follow the recipe's instructions (usually separating the juice in the can from the cherries) and make your pie! However, if you're using fresh cherries like I was, then you have quite a bit of prep work ahead of you.

First, pitting. Have a large bowl full of unpitted cherries and a smaller one for the pits. I just pit the pitted cherries back in the bowl with the other ones (because you can feel whether or not it's a pitted cherry), but feel free to have another bowl for pitted cherries. To pit cherries easily, here's a helpful hint: get a paperclip. It can be a thick one or the normal kind (I found thicker better....it's more stable), but to use you simply unbend one end. You take this point and drive it into the cherry somewhere until it hits the pit. Then you follow the pit around in a circle until you come back to your original cut, i.e. circumscribe a cut around the pit. You will have a slice going around the surface of the cherry. Then simply peel the edge away until you have two halves. Remove the pit and you're done! This makes this time-consuming task a lot less time-consuming, and also impresses your boyfriend with your cunning. Obviously continue until you have the amount you need.

NOW. If you're using a recipe that calls for "cherry juice from the can" and you're using fresh cherries, you're in a bit of a pickle. You must make up what this is. I figured that canned cherries would be simply housed in water, but since they're pitted they would ooze juice into it as well. So what I did was do about a 1:4 ratio of squeezed cherry juice to water. To get cherry juice, I simply squeezed some leftover cherries into a measuring cup. This is VERY slow going, and they don't yield more than a 1/2 t of juice per cherry, usually. So be aware.

Finally, if you've got a crust that when baking seems to stay raw in the center, you have 3 options. You can:

1) Move the pie up to a rack closer to the heat element for a few more minutes. If you do this, you must watch it pretty much constantly or you risk burning it.

2) Use a torch/match/flame of some kind to "char" the parts that aren't fully cooked yet.

3) Use a fork to disperse the uncooked material around in the pie (perhaps even pushing INTO the filling) and put back in the oven for a few minutes.

When you're done, you have a delicious pie that tastes even sweeter due to the amount of physical labor put into it!

Blonde Apple Brownies Recipe

1/2 c butter, melted

1 c white sugar

1 egg

3 apples, peeled and cubed/sliced

1/2 c chopped walnuts

1 c all-purpose flour

1/4 t salt

1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1 t cinnamon

1 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 9x9 dish. In one bowl beat butter, sugar and egg until fluffy. Fold in apples and walnuts. In another bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet until blended. Spread batter in baking dish and bake 35 min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Notes:

• Grease the dish way more than you think. This is good because 1) there's no way anything will stick, especially in the corners, and 2) you'll get that lovely buttery crust on the edge pieces!
• Cinnamon is one of those spices where you can use a lot and still have everything taste good. Really experiment with how much you use.
• Since the butter is to be melted, and you have raw eggs to consider, ALWAYS wait until the butter cools before adding!! If you don't you'll begin to cook the egg, which means you'll have chunks of egg in your batter.
• As always, DON'T overmix! Your batter will be the consistency of concrete and you'll emulsify everything. This will affect the texture of your resulting cookie and make them hard.