Baking says home to me. I've been living in airports and hotels all over the country in the last couple of weeks. I've been living on airport ham and cheese toasted sandwiches and soup-of-the-day room service dinners. And all the while I've been dreaming about getting home, back to my kitchen, my oven and a homemade cherry pie.
Here's a sneak peak at the finished product so you know what I'm taking about...
I am a dedicated pie girl. It's the pastry that has me hooked - pure buttery, flaky goodness. Bad pastry means terrible pie. The secret is to be cool with your pastry. Have your butter chilled, roll it out on a cool surface (i.e. not near a hot oven) and handle it as little as possible.
The filling recipe comes from Nigella Lawson but I've teamed it with Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry. Maggie is my go-to-girl for pastry (sorry Nigella). Her sour cream pastry recipe can be used for sweet or savoury pies and tarts. And the best thing about it is it's dead simple.
I know pastry can be can be a scary thing for many people. So I've put together a little picture book guide to make it all the more easy...
Put chilled butter and flour in a food processor and blend.
Stop when it looks like this:
Add sour cream and blend. Stop when it looks like this:
Tip out onto your bench and push it together. Don't knead it or play with it, just smoosh it together. Divide into two balls (one slightly bigger than the other). Wrap and refrigerate.
Now let's get on to the business of rolling. Take out and unwrap the largest ball of dough. Use plenty of flour. Flour up your bench, flour your rolling pin and dust the top of the pastry dough with flour too. Go for a bit of a roll. Then swivel your pastry around on the bench (this stops it from sticking). Then roll again. Keep rolling and swivelling until you've got something that looks like this...
Slide your pastry into your tin and pop it into the fridge while you get your cherry filling done.
Fill your pie, roll out the second ball of dough (the smaller one) and place on top of the filling. Trim the edges and fold them over so it looks like this...
Poke a few holes in the top and if you're a bit naff like me you can top it with a cherry pastry cut out. Brush with egg, bake and you should get something like this...
A dollop of mascarpone or thick cream is all it needs.
I love you Home Sweet Cherry Pie.
Home Sweet Cherry Pie
Sour Cream Pastry:
200g unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
250g plain flour
135g sour cream
Filling:
680g jar morello cherries
60g butter, melted
180g sugar
2 Tbsp plain flour
2 Tbsp juice from drained cherries
1 egg, lightly beaten
mascarpone or thick cream to serve
Preheat oven to 200°C.
For the pastry, place flour and butter into a food processor and blend until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add sour cream and blend until it starts to come together and looks chunky (see pic above). If it doesn't quite come together add 1 tsp cold water and blend again.
Tip out onto a clean surface and push together into a ball. Divide into two balls (about 2/3 and 1/3). The larger one will be the pie base and the other will be the pie top. Wrap each ball in cling film and refrigerate for 30 mins.
Roll out the larger of the two balls to about 5mm thick. Line your pie tin with the pastry. I actually used a 23cm sponge cake tin. Put into the fridge while you make the filling.
For the filling, drain cherries, reserving 2 Tbsp of the juice. Mix together the butter, sugar, flour, and 2 Tbsp cherry juice. It will be a pasty sort of mixture and you'll probably think it won't be enough to fill the pie but just have a little faith at this point.
Spread paste over the base of the pastry. Top with the cherries. Roll out the second ball of pastry dough and place over the filling. Trim the edges so you've got about 2 cm of overhang. Then fold the edges over so you've got a nice bit of crust.
Poke a couple of holes in the top of the pie for the steam to escape. Brush top of the pie with egg.
Put pie into the oven and immediately turn the heat down to 180°C. Bake for 50 minutes. Check after 30 minutes and if the top is getting too brown, cover with foil and continue baking.
Remove and cool for at least 30 minutes. Slice and serve with a giant dollop of thick cream or mascarpone.
