apple cherry pie

Everyone loves pie. It's not an option to hate it, and if you do hate it I don't want to hear it. Actually, I have a love-hate relationship with pie, but only because I haven't got a legit grasp on making it. They turn out alright and flavorful, yet there's always something lacking, like a soggy bottom crust (who wants to hear that their bottom is saggy, let alone eat a saggy bottom crust on a pie?), or the crimping loses shape (like when you decide to curl your hair or something, only to have it fall flat upon leaving the bathroom) or the dough shrinks. I used to be afraid of cakes, but Barney taught me that all the things that used to bother me really aren't so scary at all.

Sorry.

I just started baking and decorating cakes until I became semi-confident in my ability to create a purposely level and straight-sided cake. I still hold my breath, waiting to see if the cake will actually come out of the pan or be stuck and flung across the room in rage.

This is Martha's mile-high apple pie, with the remaining frozen cherries leftover from the Christmas pie. While the ratio was favoring the apples, the cherry flavor came through more than I expected. I added a bit more sugar and flour to compensate for the excess liquid once the cherries thawed, and I added cardamom, cinnamon, and freshly grated nutmeg.

Usually you might encounter the gapping crust issue with apple pies, where the apples cook down and the crust stays up. Here, there are so many apples that when the pie cools, it's pretty flush with the top crust. Then again, you could partially cook the filling and use less apples, though it's not as impressive when you slice into it as this is because there's like 5 inches of apples per slice. There's about 5 pounds of apples. In this pie. That's a lot of peeling, coring, and slicing, not to scare you away or anything. If you have any frozen fruit besides strawberries, throw them in in place of some apples.

So pretty, the crimping. I think I will start a new saying, "You're crimping my style." Except it'll be a good thing.

Another issue I have with pies is that the filling never sets up and it ruins the slice. Using this recipe, however, and letting it rest overnight before slicing (you might say this is a test of will-power, but I really just want to be done with the thing and can't wait for it to be out of my sight) produces an upstanding slice of pie.

And thus concludes the apple pie. I feel I'm getting closer to producing a crust I don't find fault with in both taste and look, and I'm getting closer to just churning pies out without much production. WATCH OUT, I'M BAKING PIE. DO NOT ENTER. Yeah, that's fun. Here's your damn pie.

"Isn't this the one you wept into?"

"It's salty sweetness, enjoy it."

So yeah, I'm much more confident in rolling the crust out and all that, and overall it's more fun to make than when the holidays come up and I haven't made a pie since a specific time in history I will not mention by name.

Expect to see more pie.