Last Friday, I was gifted with a giant bucketful of sour cherries.
My herbalist has access to a sour cherry tree and recommended a Cook’s Illustrated version of cherry pie. Because I was not sure how “cut and sharable,” a cherry pie would be, or how long one may last before melting into a soggy mess, I decided to improvise and bake small sour cherry hand pies.
I was inspired by this post on Eli Cooks: http://elicooks.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/cherry-hand-pies/
Sour cherries are edibley sour and full of juice and I enjoy eating them by the handful. To pit these cherries, I just used a serrated knife to make incisions, and plucked out the pits. Today, I was not in the mood to make my own pie crust, so I used a prepared crust instead.
The prepared pie crust consisted of frozen blocks of dough that I thawed, rolled, and cut into small circles. It tasted decent, but like a store-bought pie crust. Go figure. Next time, I might attempt to make my own pie crust or try a different brand (The co-op I visited did not have pie crust dough not already pressed into pans).
Filling: Ingredients
- 6 cups of sour cherries
- 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract
- A small splash of vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup-1 cup of honey to taste.
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch of sea salt
- 1/2 cup of cornstarch
- Pit the sour cherries.
- Mix with almond and vanilla extract and honey.
- Mix dry ingredients and fold into the sour cherries.
- Let sit for about 20 minutes. (I found the mixture to contain excess liquid).
- Make an eggwash-beat one egg with a splash of cold water.
- Brush some eggwash on the outside half of a pastry circle.
- Spoon a reasonable amount of cherries onto the pastry circle, draining off excess liquid.
- Carefully fold over the pastry circle, and seal with fingers and fork tines.
- Brush the hand pies with eggwash and sprinkle with sugar. Slit or poke the top for steam to release.
- Bake on a greased sheet pan for approximately 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees F.
- Cool on a rack and enjoy.
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