Granini's Cherry Pie
Ingredients:
Directions:
Make two pie crusts. Split into two balls, and let rest for fifteen minutes or so.
Roll one pie crust out and line a pie plate. Trim the edges and make a pretty crimped edge.
Open can of cherry pie innards. Schlop it into the pie crust.
With the second ball of pie dough, roll it out and make a lattice crust for the top. I prefer the over/under method. If you just watched the season six of The Great British Baking Show, you can see all sorts of different manners in which the bakers attempt to make a lattice crust. No one really cares what it looks like. Any lattice attempt will be better than whatever anyone else could have made, so just do your best, and move on.
If you want to know how I do mine, see below, and I'll try my best to walk you through it.
Once your lattice is on top, feel free to sprinkle with sugar. Or do an egg wash and then sprinkle with sugar. Or just put it in plain. It's up to you.
Pop that whole thing into the oven and bake at 350º for 45 - 50 minutes.
Don't take the pie out until the cherry goop is nice and thick and bubbles. If you take it out too soon, the goop won't be jellified (is that even a word?), and your pie will be wet with the dreaded soggy bottom. You're looking for a nice, thick bubbly goop.
Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Enjoy!
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*Cherry Pie innards. Yeah, yeah, I know. I am using canned stuff, rather than pitting my own cherries and making a cherry syrup, and then making the pie. But I hate, detest, and despise cherries. No idea why. Probably from having to suffer through drinking gallons of cherry flavored cough and cold medicine over the years as a child. Can't stand the thought of eating cough medicine pie. But the hubby loves it. And I love my hubby. And he's happy with the cherry crap in a can, as we affectionately call it. I make cherry turnovers for him too. Because I'm just that awesome of a wife. And I don't ever eat any. Which makes me even more awesome.
Now, some day I'll learn how to pit all those damned cherries, and how to make a cherry syrup. And when that day comes, I'll put that recipe in here too. But for now, you can see that I totally cheat when it comes to cherry pie. And you can judge me. That's just fine. Or, you, too, can see the awesomeness of finding shortcuts whenever necessary, because who has time to pit a gajillion cherries AND make fifteen other pies?!
Not me.
Now, as for the lattice. So here's what I do. I roll out my dough ball. And I use a pizza cutter to make little strips. I try to make them all roughly the same width, and as straight as I can. But I'm not perfect. And I really couldn't care less, because I am not competing on the Great British Baking Show.
So. Then I lay down one of the strips half way onto the middle of the pie, and then I fold it back onto itself. Then I repeat, adding half my strips on one side of the pie, folding them all back onto themselves, so that half the pie has strips, and the other half of the pie is naked.
I should have taken pictures. Alas.
Then I turn my pie plate 90º. I start in the middle of the pie. Starting on one end, I lay my strip under the first strip, just so that it buts up against the edge of the strip that's folded over. Then, I lay my strip on top of the filling up to the next strip. Here, I use both hands. I gently lift up the folded over part of the strip going the other way. I place my strip on top of that strip. Then I re-fold my strip back over on top. I take my strip and go under the next strip, butting it up against the edge. Then I lay my strip over the cherry innards again. When I get to the fourth strip, I repeat the two handed process, and lift up the folded bit, tuck my strip on top of that strip, fold the strip back over, and then move my strip down abutting the next strip. I keep repeating until I get to the end.
When it's time to move on to the next strip, I leave a small gap, about the width of the strip of pie crust I'm using, and I start again. This time, I go OVER the first strip. I go under the next. I go over the next, and repeat until I get to the end.
Once that whole side is finished, and looks so pretty because it's fully latticed, I flip the whole pie plate around and repeat on the other side.
The whole process sounds a lot more complicated than it really is.
You can lay all the strips down, and then peel them off the cherry innards bit by bit, but I found that if you only lay them down half way, they're easier to manipulate, because half the strips don't have the cherry stuff on them, and are less sticky. And by the time you get to the half that has cherry stuff on them, you've perfected your lattice technique, and it's much easier to handle and manipulate.
This technique works only if you have cold or room temperature innards. If you're using HOT pie innards, you can always take a piece of parchment paper and make a lattice on the parchment paper, rather than on the pie itself, and then ever so carefully flip the lattice upside down onto your pie, or slide it gently onto your pie, if you start on the opposite side and gently slide it on top. They do this technique on the Great British Baking Show, some successfully, some not. You can watch and see if you'd like to do it this way. Hot pie innards will make the fat in your pie crust melt, and make it nearly impossible to do a lattice using my technique. Everything will just turn to mush before you have a chance to manipulate your dough. One of the bakers twisted her strips, and made a very pretty lattice-like effect. But she didn't go over and under, and got dinged for it. Because Mary Berry is very particular. But it did look pretty. Someone else did a lattice at a diamond angle, and that was also quite lovely. But they also got dinged. So maybe you should just stick with the tried and true method. I personally like thinner strips. Some people like thicker strips. It's all in what you like, I suppose!
Good luck!
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Find other tasty Thanksgiving Dinner dishes here:
And tasty pie recipes here:
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I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!
Diamonds for Diamond
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed
(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)
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