Raspberry Cherry Pie for Will

I love the overlapping pastry hearts glistening with a Turbinado sugar topping,
  and the red filling peeking out.

It was 106° in Austin today--not a good pie-baking day for sure. But my sweet friend Will had just arrived home from a summer school trip and the pie fairy had promised him pie. Will loves a pure raspberry pie, but my last few attempts, while tasty, have been runny and not to my liking--although he never complained. Despite my research into berry pie recipes, or regardless of whether I used fresh or frozen berries, the results were hit or miss. Nothing more annoying than cutting into what looked like a perfect pie to have it run all over the dessert plate. I was determined to get it right this time.

I pulled out one of my favorite cookbooks, The Martha Stewart Cookbook-Collected Recipes for Every Day, published in 1995 and usually the source of my go-to pie dough recipes--say what you will, she claims they are hers--I will leave that to others to debate. And who really owns a recipe anyway? Over the years I had found this thick photo-free cookbook to be an excellent resource of many basic recipes. It's not the typical MS book--but more a textbook of how-to's.

Pâte Brisée and Perfect Pie Crust recipes are part of the first 18 pages or instruction, and they provide a quick tutorial on cooking basics. The dough recipes are pretty standard with Pâte Brisée using only butter and perfect pie crust using butter and shortening or margarine. Instructions are given for making dough both by hand or with a food processor. While flipping through the pages I came across a recipe from Martha's sister Rita Christiansen's for a Raspberry-Rhubarb Lattice Pie (page 493). I didn't think Will would approve of rhubarb--but would he let me sneak cherries into his favorite pie?

Fresh cherries would keep the pie's bright crimson red color and they were a more solid, less juicy fruit, which I hoped would keep the pie from running. I had never pitted a fresh cherry, but after pitting three cups, I promised my red stained fingers that a cherry pitter would be added to the baking drawer. Now to my secret ingredient..

Cold butter and ice water--secrets to a great pie crust.

I had tried numerous thickeners; cornstarch, flour, cornstarch and flour, instant tapioca, instant tapioca ground with cornstarch....none of the combinations had resulted in what I considered a great berry pie.

Several recipes called for cornstarch. Others called for instant tapioca. My mother-in-law's delicious apple pie used only sugar and flour. Rita's recipe was made with pretty standard ingredient combinations: flour, sugar, lemon juice, butter and spices. Since I had substituted cherries for rhubarb, I reduced the sugar a bit, added lots of cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg.

Following Rita's directions, I filled the pie shell, refrigerated it while I cut out small dough hearts (did I mention it was 106° here today and rolling pie dough into lattice would be quite a challenge). I topped the berries with overlapping dough hearts and brushed it with an egg yolk/water mixture. I added my usual dough dusting of shiny Turbinado sugar, which made the finished pie glisten.

Golden crust, oozing raspberry cherry filling, ready for Will to enjoy.

The recipe called for baking the pie for an hour and a half--which I decided made more sense than the usual hour called for in most recipes. Extra baking time allowed the berries time to break down and gave the juices time to thicken. Poor Will had to wait a few hours to taste his pie--a challenge I'm sure. The smell alone of cherries, raspberries, cinnamon and nutmeg--twas perfume of the food gods.

I think the texture of this pie with fresh pitted cherries and plump summer raspberries was a winner and made for what I think is the perfect summer sweet berry pie.  But the true test is what Will the raspberry pie connoisseur think?


Will's Fresh Raspberry Cherry Pie
Serves one teenage boy
Makes one 9-11" double crusted pie
(adapted from The Martha Stewart Cookbook)

Pâte Brisée (see recipe below)

Filling:
1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh raspberries, fresh
3-4 cups fresh sweet cherries, pitted and sliced in half
1 1/4 cups sugar, or to taste
1/3 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg, beaten with 2 tablespoons heavy cream
Turbinado sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Roll 2/3 of the pie dough out for the bottom crust. Fit into into a 10-11" pie plate and chill. Make sure you allow the dough to fall over the edge of the pie plate about an inch.

Put raspberries and cherries in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle with sugar, flour, vanilla and almond extract, cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon juice. Using a wooden spoon or plastic spatula, gently toss.  Spoon the filling into the chilled pie shell and dot with butter pieces. Refrigerate while you prepare the topping.

Using a heart shaped cookie cutter (or whatever shape you like), roll out the remaining dough in small pieces. Cut out individual hearts and place beginning on outer rim of shell. Overlap slightly so that you have small openings for the cherry/raspberry filling to bubble through. Leave a small opening in the middle of the pie. Brush with egg/heavy cream glaze and dust with Turbinado sugar.

Place pie on a parchment-lined baking sheet to protect the oven from dripping fruit juices.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours, until pastry is golden brown and the juices in the center of the pie are bubbling (my favorite part--bubble and peek!).

Cool on wire rack for 2-4 hours before serving.

Rita's pie recipe calls for a lattice top, but it is so hot this summer in Texas that I found cutting out little hearts easier. If you make this pie in the winter, definitely do the lattice. I loved the look of the hearts though and think it really added to the beauty of the finished pie.

Enjoy!

 

Pâte Brisée (adapted from The Martha Stewart Cookbook)
Makes two 8-10 inch tarts or single crust pies, or one 8-10 inch double crust pie

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Put flour, salt, and sugar in bowl of a food processor. Add butter and process for 10 seconds, or until mixture resembles coarse meal. 

Add ice water, drop by drop, through feed tube with machine running, just until dough comes together without being wet, about 30 seconds. Test the dough by squeezing a small amount together. If crumbly, add a tiny bit more water. If it comes together stop.

Turn dough out onto a large piece of waxed paper. Press the dough into a flat circle and seal. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least one hour. Take our 15 minutes (unless you live in Austin and will be baking this in the summer--then only 5 minutes) before you want to roll out. Cut a 2/3 piece to roll out for pie shell.

Keep remaining pie dough wrapped well in the refrigerator until you want to cut out the hearts. Flour your work surface and rolling pin well and roll dough to 1/4" thick. Place in pan and leave an overhang on pie shell. Then fold over and press to make a nice tall edge. You can press with a fork, pinch or simply press to make it stand tall like I did. You just don't want filling to overflow too much.

Heart of Raspberry and Cherry Pie.

When you add your dough hearts, make sure they fill in the areas between the shell edges and heart edges as much as possible. Your pie will bubble over and be beautiful....just make sure you bake on a parchment lined baking sheet so clean-up is easy.  

By the way....Will said it was a winner. Thanks Rita!

Will sent me this photo of his first slice of pie.

SCORE!
My new cherry pitter--best $4 I have spent recently.
I'm not a gadget person, but this will make cherry pie baking more enjoyable
and save me from stained pink fingers and nails. :)