Let’s talk cherries!
When cherry season arrives here in Spain, everyone goes mad for them. I am one of those people. Cherry Pie is that taste of summer. All the family enjoy it served alongside a blob of ice cream, or drizzled with fresh cream.
Cherries are such an attractive fruit and can be used in many things. I even added some to my Summer Fruits Pizza a few days ago although that wasn’t in the plan, but it had to be done.
Getting down to it
Making a pie is one of my passions and it isn’t just about the filling. I adore ‘playing’ with pastry. A cherry pie allows you to be creative and this cherry pie was no exception!
Pastry!
As a rule I do like to make my own pastry. On this occasion however, I was busy trying to do the usual twenty things at once so I used Mercadona empanada pastry. I often use their pastry. It is high quality and absolutely delicious.
I think most people that live here in Spain will be familiar with the Mercadona chain of supermarkets. If not click this link Mercadona and take a look, you can even shop from home and use their delivery service. It is a fabulous shop.
Anyway, enough drooling over Mercadona, lets drool over Cherry Pie!
Removing the stone from your fruit.
I used around 600g of cherries. They were fresh and needed pitting. I decided to use my olive stoner, but the cherries were too big, so I made a slit in the side of the cherry using my thumb nail and picked out the stone.
A little Spanish lesson!
In case you didn’t know! In Spanish the word for the stone is actually ‘hueso’ which translates to bone.
So when shopping in Spain, if you notice ‘sin hueso’ on a tin of olives, that is what it means… ‘without stones’.
More pie talk!
So now my cherries were ‘without stone’. I buttered a pie dish, lined it with a circle of my pastry and tipped in the cherries.You want the cherries to come to the edge of the dish.
I have to admit I didn’t actually notice how many cherries I used. For my dish it was around the 600g mark. Buy a kilo and eat the rest if you have some left over!
Putting the pie together.
Once the dish is filled with the cherries, sprinkle over a couple of dessert spoons of granulated sugar.
Next, in a small bowl, mix a dessert spoon of cornflour with a little water and mix until smooth. I also added a splash of vanilla essence. I poured the mix over the cherries in the pastry lined pie dish. It just gives it an extra bit of juice and helps to thicken the cherry juices.
A little tip…
As with any pie, a quick egg wash over the pastry before you bake is required. It gives it a lovely golden glow to the pastry. With a fruit pie, a sprinkle of granulated sugar gives it an extra twinkle.
Cherry Pie
Equipment
- Pie dish – Mine was 7"
- Rolling Pin
- Cherry pitter/skewer
- Oven
- Pastry brush
- knife
Ingredients
- 1 kg Fresh cherries
- 1 pk Ready made pastry – enough to line a tin and add a lid – 500g of pastry
- 2-3 dessert spoons granulated sugar
- 1 dessert spoon cornflour
- splash water
- Half tsp vanilla essence
- 1 beaten egg
Instructions
- Pre heat your oven to 200 deg C
- Remove stones and stalks from your cherries.
- Line your pie dish with pastry
- Add cherries (enough to fill your pie dish to the top – you may have some left over) and sprinkle over 2 dessert spoons of your sugar (add a little more if the cherries are not very sweet).
- Mix the cornflour with a little water until smooth, add your vanilla essence and pour over the cherries in your lined pie dish
- Add a lid of pastry and seal the edges by pinching together, or press with a fork. You can brush the 2 edges of pastry with a little water to help them stick together
- Brush the lid with some beaten egg and make a hole in the top to allow steam to escape. Finally, sprinkle sugar over the pastry lid for that extra sparkle
- Bake for around 40 – 45 minutes until golden