George Wouldn't Have Chopped Down That Tree If This Was Dessert - Good ol' Cherry Pie

OK, I have 3 crusts to play with so here is Number one. The Pâte Brisée. This is my "go to" pastry whenever constructing a pie, though I tend to vary the amount of sugar slightly, depending on the filling. It's used by my mother (the Goddess of all that is pie) and by my grandmother (Goddess of all that is Cake) as well. For this crust, I chose the sweeter pie filling. Good Ol' Chery Pie.

I am a great proponent for Amarelle cherries for cherry pie, as opposed to Morello. I believe that they have better flavor, so much so that I will use canned Montmorency cherries (an Amarelle variety) before I will use fresh Morello. And since there are not a lot of Montmorency cherries being grown in Southern California, being none, I end up using canned cherries A LOT. At some point in the near future I would like to experiment with Bing Cherries and Balsamic vinegar, but that future is not tonight. :)

Arrowroot Powder and Cornstarch are interchangeable. I usually go for the Arrowroot for 2 reasons. First, I can taste cornstarch in fruit pies and I find arrowroot has little to no flavor, at least to me. Secondly, Arrowroot makes a shinier filling that cornstarch does. It almost makes the pie look unreal.

Good Ol' Cherry Pie

1 recipe Pâte Brisée
2 Cans (29 oz) (522g) of Montmorency or Morello Cherries in their juices
1/3 cup (80 ml) Honey (Preferably a fruit honey, but fireweed honey lends a “creaminess”)
3 TB Arrowroot powder or Cornstarch
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Mace
Pinch or 2 of salt
2 TB Butter, cut into 8 pieces
optional - Egg white wash
optional - Sanding or granulated sugar

Open cans,

Drain the cherries from one can really well reserving 3/4 cup of the juice.

Remove 2 TB of the liquid to a small ramekin and add the arrowroot powder.

Stir to create slurry, and then add back to the saucepan along with the honey, salt, cinnamon and mace.

Stir sauce with a whisk until it begins to bubble and thicken.

This can take awhile, so I usually crack open a corona...

Once the sauce is thick, remove from heat and fold in all the cherries,

Don’t worry if the filling seems a little runny, you still have to bake it, so it will thicken more.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Divide the Pâte Brisée in half and roll out the 1st half to line a 9 inch glass pie dish. (Not the 9 ½ inch deep dish made by Pyrex, but a normal sized shallow 9 inch dish)
Leave any pastry that hangs over the edge, you will need it later.

Pour cherry filling into the shell, dot with the 8 pieces of butter
Roll out your second piece of Pâte Brisée into a disk; using a fluted pastry wheel, or a sharp knife, to slice the pastry into strips about 1/2 inch wide.

Starting off center of the pie and working perpendicular create a lattice top weaving each consecutive strip leaving about 1/2 inch between each of the strips.

Cut the ends of strips so they are flush with the over hanging crust.

Fold the edge over and pinch crimp the pastry between thumb and forefinger.

Bake pie for 30-35 minutes.
Optionally use an egg white wash over the lattice strips and sprinkle with sanding or granulated sugar
If the crimped edge becomes too dark before the lattice has browned, use crust guards of small strips of foil to cover the crimped edge.

Incidentally, I noticed, upon editing the pictures that my weave is off, the last strip on the right hand side of the above picture is wrong... oops.. Maybe the beer wasn't such a good idea.... Nah!

Mangia!!
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Oh! The best part, when I was a kid and mom made lattice top pies, is that there is always pastry left over... It was AWESOME!!!! because.......

She would grab her little 7 inch pie plate (it took me 8 years to track one down in a thrift store - Evidently, Pyrex quit making them eons ago)

Roll out the left over pastry and toss it in the pie plate

Smear it with butter, then sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar.

Then bake it, after the pie came out of the oven, for 15-20 minutes.

A simple tasty treat indeed.
Enjoy with a cup of coffee while you wait for your pie to cool :)

But I also had an alterior motive for preparing this little confectionery pastry delight. It allows me to show you what Pâte Brisée does when cooked. Granted, when there is a filling sitting on it, it won't puff up quite this much, but the idea is still the same.

I wish I could have gotten closer to show the little pockets, but with a point and shoot camera, I am a little limited. Never the less, proof positive of the flaky nature of Pâte Brisée.

Mangia Again!!
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