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. :)

Almost Black Forest Cake

Check out this recipe for an almost black forest cake! It's so yummy! I made this cake for my parents' 30th anniversary and it was a hit. I used the chocolate cake recipe from my post Decadent Chocolate Cake. Once the cake was baked and cooled, I sliced it in half to make 2 layers. Each layer was brushed with kirsch mixed with icing sugar until it tasted sweet and was a bit syrupy. Usually about 1/3 - 1/2 cup kirsch mixed with about 1/2-2/3 cup of icing sugar, but go by taste.

You will need to make a buttercream icing to act as a barrier between the chocolate cherry filling and the rest of the cake. This will avoid having soggy cake! I found my buttercream recipe on the Food Network webpage - I cheated and made a "quick" buttercream icing rather than going through the work and massive amounts of butter required by a true buttercream. This buttercream recipe was delicious tasting and had a lot of the characteristics of a true buttercream (only an expert would know that I "cheated"!!).

Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Recipe from the Food Network.com

Ingredients:

• 3 cups icing sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 tbsp whipping cream

Method:

1. In a standing mixer fitted with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes.
2. Add vanilla and cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more cream if needed for spreading consistency.

*Note: Double this recipe if you are icing the entire cake!! You will need almost all of the icing.

Ice the top of the bottom layer and then fill a piping bag with some of the icing and pipe a "barrier" around the edge of the cake layer. This will hold in the filling so it doesn't ooze out of the cake when you top it with the next layer. See my photo below for an example:

To make the filling, combine any scraps trimmed off the cake (crumble them up) with cherry pie filling (about 1/2 of the recipe). Spoon this onto the bottom layer inside of the buttercream barrier. Then top with the top layer and ice the entire cake with a thin layer of the buttercream (Called a crumb layer). This will fill in any gaps and collect up any crumbs of chocolate cake so they don't get in your final layer of icing. Place in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes to firm up.

Then ice with a final layer of buttercream. Make sure this layer is nice and smooth! Garnish with fresh cherries and grated chocolate to give people and idea of what's in the cake. Enjoy!