Cherry Pie!

Whew! What an insane week. I don't know where the time went, but it sure flew by fast. My hubby is out of town and I've been studying and working like crazy, oh and trying to fit in a few 6am spin classes to squeeze in some much needed exercise too! Any way, last weekend during some of my *ahem* spare time, I decided to use up my 10lbs of cherries I purchased in the Okanagan while we were there. So I made cherry pie! YUM!! I think this was my best cherry pie yet - this claim can be backed by various co-workers' rave reviews, including one cherry pie afficianado who claims it is the best cherry pie he has ever tasted. Hows that for an ego boost?

You're probably thinking this is a lot of work, or some outrageous recipe. Nope! Sure isn't. Its just Anna Olson's basic cherry pie recipe from her cookbook Fresh. I tweaked the recipe a little. Here is where you can find the original recipe.


Now, I made a few changes! First off - for the pastry - I used all butter (one whopping cup of buttery goodness) instead of half butter and half shortening. I think it lead to a flakier and richer tasting crust. You could definitely taste the butter. Be warned, this does make the pastry a tad more difficult to work with because it heats up and the butter melts a lot faster, so keep handling to a minimum and be sure to chill thoroughly prior to working with the pastry.

Next, I used sweet cherries because thats what was for sale in the Okanagan while I was there. To thicken the pie filling, I used a mix of half cornstarch and half flour, I also used a heaping quarter cup (total) of the cornstarch/flour mixture as I found that in the past the filling was a tad runny. This slight adjustment lead to the perfect consistency of pie filling!

An thats it! Easy, peasy!


Happy Baking my Friends! I promise to try to catch my neglected blog up to speed with some interesting posts this weekend. :)