Cherry Pie

Recently Jean from Baking in Franglais posted a recipe for cherry pie that looked simple and delicious. Like her, I had cherries from our own trees squirrelled away in the freezer so I had the key ingredient and it was about time I used them. I had frozen them after the tedious task of stoning and had just the right quantity for Jean's pie recipe.

The cooked cherry pie filling.

By chance Dotty arrived bearing a lemon, just as I was about to start baking, so I was able to add that instead of the lime I had planned to substitute because I didn't have any lemons on hand. I'm not quite sure why Dotty brought a lemon, except that maybe she felt she needed an excuse to call in and soak up an hours warmth by our stove rather than spend it in her own half renovated, and as yet unheated, house around the corner.

 The finished pie, with a large chunk removed for immediate consumption by me and Simon.

The cherry pie was indeed simple and delicious, fragrant, with well behaved pastry and the cherries didn't ooze all over the place and make a mess. I liked the technique of setting aside a portion of the cherries and only adding them to the filling after the bulk of them were cooked and thickened. The only problem I had was not owning a suitable pie dish. I own two pie dishes, one metal, one ceramic, but they are both enormous. I had to make the cherry pie in a shallow cake tin with a removeable base. The pastry stuck to the vertical sides so a certain amount of undignified prising was necessary to extract the first slice. Nevertheless, definitely a recipe to file and repeat.

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