Cherry Pie
Cherries are a delight to eat, however, the ones I tend to find wild are a little bitter for eating fresh and this pie is a great way of getting them off the tree and on to your table. Frozen cherries also go a little limp but that’s not an issue in this dish so frozen cherries can also be used. You’ll find this vibrant sweet fruit filling waiting to be eaten beneath a crispy and crunchy, golden brown crusting pastry – Dive in.
To make one pie, which will serve 6, pie dish about 2cm squared and 7cm deep (or whatever you have)
Ingredients for the filling:
400g cherries, stones removed and halved
150g cherry jam
50ml cherry syrup (or 50g Caster Sugar)
25g slightly salted butter
Vanilla ice cream to serve
Ingredients for the pastry:
250g salted butter
400g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
50ml cherry syrup (or 50g caster sugar)
2 egg yolks
Method:
For the pastry, place your flour in a large bowl, chop the butter in to small cubes and mix in to the flour until it resembles bread crumbs and is all mixed as well as you can get it.
Put the egg yolks and cherry syrup (or sugar) in to the bowl and mix thoroughly, it’s easiest to do this with your hands.
Put out on to a floured surface and quickly knead for a minute until it’s all sufficiently bound together.
Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge whilst you make the filling.
In another bowl mix the cherries, cherry jam, cherry syrup (or sugar) and butter.
Remove the pastry from the fridge and split in to two equal sized pieces.
On a well-floured surface roll the two pieces out until they’re about the thickness of a £1 coin. Place one of them in a well grease pie dish so that it covers the base and sides (if it’s too small use a smaller dish or roll out slightly smaller)
If you have baking beans use those (or use well washed 1 and 2 penny pieces), place a piece of baking paper over your first layer of pastry, in the baking dish, then put the beans or pennies on top of this and flash bake for 4 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 180C
Remove from the oven, remove lift your baking paper to remove the pennies or beans. Fill your flash baked pastry case with the filling, put the last piece of rolled pastry on top, cut anything that comes over the edge of the dish.
Brush the pastry with your left over egg white and bake for 35 minutes.
Leave to cook for at least 15 minutes before serving up with a good dollop of vanilla ice cream.
