Sour Cherry Lattice Pie

Happy belated Memorial Day! What better way to celebrate an American holiday than with a homemade cherry pie? Well truthfully, it started out as a mulberry pie. But when I went to retrieve my mulberries from the refrigerator, I discovered mold had taken over. Gross! I plundered my kitchen cabinets and found two cans of sour cherries. That'll do, pig! I scanned through my cookbook collection until I finally found a cherry pie recipe that called for canned cherries. This one comes from The Taste of Home Baking Book. I used my go-to crust recipe, and it was perfect. The use of cake flour and my adapted way of making the pastry are really forgiving. I baked the scraps while the pie was in the oven, and even after being rolled and re-rolled, they were still soooo yummy sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.

My cherry pie!Dad is the grill master!

I also took this opportunity to test out a pie pan I just got. It's made by Chicago Metallic, and it allegedly makes slicing and serving pies a breeze. It comes with a contraption that slices the pie into 8 even slices. The pan itself has a removable bottom, and it came with a little stand that pushes the pie up from the bottom of the pan so that the slices can be removed from the sides without damaging them.After baking and slicing the pie in the Slice Solutions pan, I'm a BIG fan! It browned the crust nicely, and it kept the slices beautiful and clean. The package said it works best on single crust pies, but with some finesse, I managed to press the cutter into my lattice-topped pie with minimal damage. I'll absolutely be using this pie pan again and again! ;D If you're interested, I got it from UWantSavings.com for $17 and FREE shipping!PS: Let's keep this a secret from the new bathing suit I got from Target on Saturday... I'm having a slice of this pie for breakfast right now!

Sour Cherry Lattice Pie (from The Taste of Home Baking Book)
Makes 1 9-inch pie

2 cans (14.5-16 oz each) tart pitted cherries
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons instant tapioca
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
Red food coloring, optional (the canned cherries are somewhat grayish; I added 3 drops red gel color)
1 tablespoon butter
1 double-crust pastry

Divide pastry dough in half. Roll half into a 12-inch circle, fit into pie pan, and let it rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator or freezer.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Drain cherries, reserving 1/4 cup juice. In a large bowl, combine the cherries, juice, sugar, tapioca, extract, salt, and food coloring if desired; let stand for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, roll other half of pastry into a 12-inch circle, and allow it to rest in the refrigerator until needed.

Pour filling into pie shell and dot with butter. With a knife or pastry wheel cut the other rolled out pastry into 3/4” strips. Place pastry strips in a lattice pattern on top of pie. (Click here for illustrated help.) Bake for 55-60 minutes. If crust begins to brown too quickly, cover edges with aluminum foil or a pie crust shield. Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.

Italian Bread

Originally I wasn't planning on blogging about this recipe. My dad asked me to make some bread last minute for spaghetti dinner. Since we were rained in all day... oh yeah, I live in the Hampton Roads area of VA. If you haven't heard, WE'RE FREAKIN UNDER WATER thanks to the "November Nor'easter"! Google it to see if you can find the video of the guy rowing himself with a broom in a pool float to get to a 7-11! Anyway, back to the bread. It was very last minute, but it came out gorgeous so I twittered about it (tweeted about it? hmm...) Lots of you asked for the recipe, so here it is! It's super simple, and if you apply some basic baguette forming techniques you'll get a pretty fancy looking loaf! ;D




Italian Bread (adapted from The Taste of Home Baking Book)
1 package active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F), divided
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons shortening
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 egg
4-4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup warm water. Add the sugar, shortening, salt, egg, remaining water, and 2 cups of flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. Turn the speed to medium and knead for 8 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Flatten into a rough rectangle. Fold in half long ways and pinch the seem. Fold in half long ways again, and pinch the seem. Turn the dough seem side down and lightly roll from the center to the ends to double the length of the loaf. Place seam side down on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cover loosely with a dry towl and let rise until doubled.

Slash the loaf four or five times diagonally with a sharp knife. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan and place on a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Zucchini Bars w/ Spiced Brown Butter Frosting

Ladies and gentlemen, please stand and welcome my guest for this post, zucchini!!! Umm... you, yeah you, why aren't you standing? What, you don't like zucchini?? My friend, obviously you have not met these zucchini bars! One bite and I promise you and zucchini will be BFFs!! You don't believe me? Well, I wish I could tempt you with a mouth-watering photograph, but sadly my good camera is sitting in our camper at a campground about 45 minutes away! You'll have to take my word for it that these are totally delicious! It doesn't taste like scary vegetables. It tastes like perfectly moist, extremely flavorful cake with a bit of crunch from some chopped walnuts. It's more like a cake than a "bar." And since it's filled with shredded zucchini, you can forget about all the butter and sugar that's in it and pretend like you're eating healthy! According to my mom, it's in her top 10 best things I've ever baked. I tweaked the frosting a bit by browning the butter first. That really takes the flavor to a new level, but it's just too sweet for my taste. Next time, I'd reduce the frosting recipe by half and just drizzle it on. But other than that, this recipe from The Taste of Home Baking Book is definitely worthy of an A+!
C'mon, you know me! Have I ever put writing on any of my photos? I mean, unless it was for a promo (like for my Christmas Cookie Caper). But other than that, I never put text on my photos because I think it's extremely distracting. Well, in this case that's exactly why I did it. I had to use my old camera for this entry, and it is NOT good for food photography! The best I could do was distract you with words! How 'bout that recipe!!!...

Frosted Cinnamon Zucchini Bars (from The Taste of Home Baking Book)
Yields a 1-inch high cake in a 13-x9-inch pan
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
(I added 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt)
2 cups shredded zucchini (about 2 medium zucchini**)
1 cup flaked coconut (I left this out because I didn't want any flavors competing with the zucchini)
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

FROSTING:
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (I bumped it up to 4 tablespoons and browned it in a saucepan)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 tablespoons milk

(**Put your shredded zucchini into a lint-free dish towel and squeeze out the excess water. The recipe doesn't say to do this, but if you don't you'll get a soggy cake.)
1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy (about 3-5 minutes). Add eggs, one at a time, beating well (at least 15 seconds) after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, (and salt); gradually add to the creamed mixture. (Mix just until a few streaks of flour remain.) Stir in zucchini, coconut, and nuts. Spread into a greased 15-x10-x1-inch baking pan (I baked mine in a 13x9 and my cake was only 1-inch high. If you bake it in the 15x10 pan your cake is gonna be paper thin!).
2. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. For frosting, combine confectioners' sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Stir in the butter, vanilla, and enough milk to achieve spreading consistency. Frost bars before cutting.