Right now I am preparing a yummy recipe that I’ll be posting here tomorrow. Meanwhile I have something else you might want to see.
Over the past few months some of you asked me how this or that photo had been taken. Your questions gave me an idea that you might find interesting to see how several of my sets looked like. I myself love this kind of information and seek it eagerly wherever possible.
So, from now on, if I find the photo set that I’ve created interesting in a certain way I’ll show it to you.
If it helps at least one of you then my mission was worth it.
The picture above is by far not perfect or exquisite or anything. But what I find interesting about it is the lighting. You might be wondering how on earth that set was lit and whether I used artificial lights or not. And how I dare own photography lighting without letting you know.
So, this is what the set looked like.
I don’t use lights since I don’t own photography lights.
But what I own is my home-made silver reflector (you can find its heart-touching story here). And then I have one window. And then I have some white paper that I duct taped to the wall and to my kitchen countertop. And that’s it!
Very, very simple.
This is the job that my camera did.
Well, she was really trying.
I still love her dearly.
And yes, I refer to my camera as her. It’s my best friend after all. Actually, I might start calling her Amelie.
This might possibly be the most delicious pie on the face of the Earth.
Or, even better – in the universe.
And if there is a multiverse, then there too.
I got amazed by how scrumptiously such a simple pie can taste.
Absolutely yummy and finger-lickin’ (or in more civilized households – fork-lickin’).
But in our household it’s definitely something between finger-lickin’ and plate-lickin’.
Well, welcome to my world.
And now something about the GIVEAWAY…
Because I think that kitchen gadgets of any kind are the next best thing (right after the cherry pie) I’ve prepared this cute giveaway for you.
It’s a CHERRY PITTER.
And it’s simply awesome. TO ENTER (Contest closed. Thank you.)
To enter this giveaway, just answer the following question in the ‘Comments section’ of this post:
“What is you favorite dessert?” THE RULES
One entry per person, please.
Additional entries:
Twitter (follow ZoomYummy and tweet the link of this post; leave a note about it in the comment section of this post),
Facebook (fan ZoomYummy and share the link of this post; leave a note about it in the comment section of this post).
(So together you can have three entries.)
Winner will be selected at random and announced on Thursday (June 10). Good luck, everybody!
(Contest closed. Thank you.)
And now, back to the cherry pie…
These are the ingredients.
So simple.
1. To make the crust, place the flour, butter, sugar, salt and water into the bowl of your electric mixer.
2. Mix until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
3. Then work with your hands until the dough comes together and you’ve formed a nice, compact ball.
4. Place the dough into a bowl, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.
5. Meanwhile, we can prepare the cherry filling.
In a saucepan, cook the cherries in water for 10 minutes.
6. Mix together the sugar and cornstarch and add to cherries.
(There’s this thing you should really know about me. I have the shortest attention span of all the human beings that have ever lived on this planet. So here I go – taking a picture of one tablespoon cornstarch being added to the sugar which caused me to completely forget about the second tablespoon cornstarch that I should have used as well. The result – my pie was a little more ‘runny’ than it should have been. But don’t worry – I am okay with that.)
7. Cook the cherry mixture until it thickens – about 5 minutes.
8. Cool slightly before using to fill your pie shell.
9. Remove the dough from the fridge and place it onto a well-floured surface.
10. Cut it in about ‘2/3 : 1/3′ ratio (… or, as I so like to say – cut it into a bigger and smaller half – here, I said it. Logical nonsense yet so relieving).
11. To form the pie shell, roll out the ‘bigger half’ on a floured surface into a 14-inch (35 cm) round.
12. Wrap around your rolling pin and carefully unroll over a 9-inch (23 cm) pie plate.
13. Fit gently into the bottom and the side of the plate. Use kitchen shears to trim the dough to a 1-inch overhang.
(I made those little holes on the bottom with a fork and I really don’t know why I made them.)
14. Then go on and fill the shell with the delicious filling.
15. Then grab the ‘smaller half’ of the dough, roll it out into a 14-inch (35 cm) round as well.
16. Using a sharp knife, cut it into even strips (you can use a ruler to guide you).
17. This is how I formed the lattice.
Picture 1 – To form a lattice top, lay out four to seven (seven in my case) strips on top of the filling.
Picture 2 – Fold back every other strip.
Picture 3 – Place one long strip of dough perpendicular to the parallel strips, as shown.
Picture 4 – Unfold the folded strips over the perpendicular strip and take the parallel strips that are running underneath (!) the perpendicular strip and fold them back over the perpendicular strip.
Picture 5 – Lay down a second perpendicular strip of dough next to the first strip, with some space between the strips. Unfold the folded parallel strips over the second strip. And again take the parallel strips that are running underneath the perpendicular strip and fold them back over the perpendicular strip.
Pictures 6 and 7 – Continue this process until the weave is complete over the top of the pie.
Picture 8 – Trim the parts of the strips that are longer than the dough underneath.
Picture 9 – Fold back the rim of the shell over the edge of the lattice strips and crimp the rim with your fingertips and knuckle.
Or you can just forget the whole lattice thing and cut out some little star shapes and place them on top of the filling.
There you go.
This is the finished lattice – still, I guess it’s really worth a try.
18. Just for kicks, you can brush the top of the lattice with a lightly beaten egg yolk.
19. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 45 minutes (or until golden brown).
20. Place the baked pie on a wire rack to cool for about 2-3 hours.
Would you like to know what I’ve been doing for the past two hours?
Sitting in the kitchen and staring at the Mini Apple Pies I’ve just made.
I LOVE the way they look… so cute, adorable and so much fun to make.
And I haven’t even started talking about the way they taste – it’s left me speechless… up till now…
Just try making them – your family will love you and your kids will surely be awed and remember them for quite some time.
These are the ingredients:
And this is how the story goes:
1. Place the flour, sugar (2 tablespoons/30 grams) and salt in the bowl of your electric mixer.
Stir with a spoon until combined (don’t use the mixer yet… unless you want to disappear in white, dusty fog forever).
2. Add the butter (1 cup – 226 grams) and mix (now you have the permission to use the mixer) until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
3. Pour 1/4 cup (60 ml) water in a slow, steady stream until the dough holds together when pinched. If necessary, pour more water.
Mix for only about 30 seconds.
4. Remove the dough from the mixer bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about one hour before using.
5. Meanwhile, we can prepare the filling…
Peel the apples (I am using Golden Delicious here), core them and cut them into teeny tiny dices.
Place the cut apples into a bowl.
6. Add the sugar (1/2 cup – 100 grams), lemon juice, salt (1/4 teaspoon), cornstarch (some of you may know this as corn flour) and the wonderful, fragrant, heavenly cinnamon.
(What would I just be without cinnamon…? Probably some purposeless creature. I am sorry for this purposeless note.)
7. Melt the butter (2 tablespoons/30 grams) in your microwave and add it to the mixture.
8. Mix, mix, mix.
I am glad to inform you that now we’ve reached the apple filling perfection.
Please, be stronger than me and try not to feast on this heavenly mixture at this stage.
9. Preheat the oven to 356 F (180 C).
10. Grease your regular sized muffin tin with vegetable oil.
As you can see I am using a silicone muffin tin – this one doesn’t need much oil… if any.
11. For our mini pies we need the bottom crust and the top crust – the bottom circle being slightly wider than the top one.
Hence, I searched my house for two glasses – the bigger one measuring about 4 1/2 inch (11 cm) and the smaller onebeing about 3 1/2 inch (8,5 cm) in diameter.
These perfectly fitted the regular muffin cup – which should be about 2 1/2 inch (6,5 cm) in diameter.
Enough with numbers.
I dipped the glass in flour.
12. I removed the dough from the fridge and placed it on a lightly floured surface.
Using a rolling pin, I rolled it out to about 0.1-inch (3 mm) thickness.
Then I went on and cut out a circle from the dough.
13. Now press the circle gently into the muffin cup.
14. Fill the dough with the apple mixture so that it comes over the top of the muffin cup.
15. This is the smaller glass being dipped in flour.
Using the smaller glass, cut out another circle and…
16. … put it on top of your pie.
With your finger, press the edges down gently.
Then, using a fork, create some nice ornament.
Let your fantasy fly free and create any ornaments that come to your mind.
Here, I grabbed my bamboo chopstick and created another decoration.
At long last, my chopsticks found some use around here… I think they are happy now…
17. Using a sharp knife (which is exactly what I am NOT using here), make two slits in the centers of your cute pies to allow the steam to escape.
Continue doing this process until you’ve run out of the dough and apple filling.
18. Place in the oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.
19. Once they are done take them out of the oven and let them sit for about 15 or 20 minutes so they get cool enough to handle.
Enjoy dear friends!
This recipe makes 11 pies.
(If you’d like to see more of my posts, click this.)
4 cups (1 liter) milk (or any amount the two puddings call for in their instructions)
confectioner’s sugar to sprinkle on top
~~~
1. Let the puff pastry thaw according to the instructions on the package.
2. Preheat an oven to 350 F (175 C).
3. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to twice the size of the baking pan you are going to use (we need one layer of the puff pastry for the bottom and one for the top of the pie).
Using a knife, cut the rolled out dough into two equal parts.
Transfer the first sheet onto the bottom of the greased pan.
4. Now we are going to need the sponge biscuit rounds. They are soooo yummy – I grew up on them.
Place the biscuits over the puff pastry layer.
Nice!
5. Take 4 sweet ripe bananas.
Cut each of them into two halves…
… and then into slices.
Just like this.
6. And onto the biscuits they go.
7. Now it’s the right time to prepare the pudding (follow the instructions on the packet).
Mix the vanilla pudding with the banana pudding and prepare them both together.
Mmmmm… – this already smells heavenly.
8. Pour the pudding over the biscuits and bananas…
… and spread it with a spoon until everything is nicely covered with the pudding.
9. Cover the pudding layer with the second part of the dough.
The pudding is going to release steam while baking so it’s fine to help it a bit by creating these little steam vents.
(Since the pie tends to rise while baking I recommend placing a piece of aluminium foil right underneath the baking pan – onto the bottom of the oven – just in case a few drops of pudding overflow. The aluminium foil will catch any spills and you can remove it from the oven easily.)
10. Bake for about 35-40 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let set and cool.
Sprinkle with some confectioner’s sugar if you feel like it.
Oh, and cut into squares of course.
Store in a refrigerator and – most importantly – ENJOY Dear Friends!
(There are many more lovely posts for you to see here.)
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