Apple Cherry Pie with Decorative Lattice Crust

Everyone is just cherry these days. It's cherry season and Bings are popular because they are big, juicy and delicious eaten on its own. However, Bing Cherries are also especially good when used in baking.

The other day; about a week and 3 days ago, around 4.30pm in the afternoon, I decided to make an apple cherry pie and a whole lattice crust design for fun. Those pretty lattice crusts are easier than I thought, it's just cutting the dough into strips and weaving it over each other on the pie until the effect is achieved.

And because I had half a puff pastry in the fridge at the time, I decided to use it to make my lattice top. And it's decidedly the best decision because after the pie's baked, the lattice was a beautiful crispy crust.


The Apple Cherry Pie is a very simple recipe.

Filling:
4 Apples - I used Macintosh apples, cut into chunks
1 cup of fresh Bing cherries, pitted
3/4 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract/ 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
a few scrapes of lemon zest
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of corn starch

Crust:
1/2 pack of puff pastry, de-frosted
1.5 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 cup very cold butter, cut into small cubes
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2-3 tablespoon of cold water
1 egg for egg wash
sugar for sprinkling


Method:
1. Combine all the ingredients for the filling in a large bowl, mix, and let it sit in the fridge until ready to use.

2. Make the bottom crust first by combining flour, salt and sugar - mix well. Add butter cubes in and rub the butter into the flour with the tip of your fingers until the flour resembles wet sand. You can use a food processor for this but i prefer using my fingers. The flour should be able to hold it's shape when you clump some in your hand.

3. Add 1 tablespoonful of cold water at a time and mix until the dough come together. Knead the dough into a ball and then flatten it into a disc shape. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.



4. Pre-heat oven at 350 F and grease your 9-inch pie pan with some butter.

5. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out until it is 1/4 inch thick with a roller. Bring it to the pie pan and mould the dough to the pie pan. Don't trim off the excess dough yet.

6. Pour the apple and cherry filling into the crust. Now roll out the defrosted puff pastry until it's 1/4 inch thick and cut it into 1.5cm strips. Create a lattice design by weaving the strips of pastry over the pie. You can always forgo the lattice work and just put the puff pastry over the pie for a conventional top crust as well. After that is done, use a fork and crimp the edges. Trim off the excess dough. Brush some egg wash over the top of your pie crust and sprinkle some granulated sugar over the top, this will give you a nicely browned crust.



7. Bake your pie at the lowest rack in your oven for 45 minutes. This will let your pie crust at the bottom brown up nicely - it's a great tip from Alton Brown.


Once your pie is done, let it sit for at least 3 hours before cutting it. This is an important step if you want your pie to look like the picturesque slice that it can be. :)



That lattice crust makes the pie look like it's out of an Enid Blyton's children's book, doesn't it?