Baking with Visne (Sour Cherries)

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baking, cherry, dessert, fruit

Jumat, 23 September 2011

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Since I�ve been on a roll with baking this week, I decided to make some cherry pies.

The other day I snapped up these late-harvest visne (sour cherries) at a manav while visiting B�y�kada.

Beautifully summer red sour cherries!

One bite of these Turkish visne and it reminded me of the sour cherries trees in my backyard while growing up in Nebraska. Being the little monkey that I was, I would climb up in the trees and sit among the branches, plucking off the cherries and eating them one by one. My mom and maternal grandmother also would can dozens of jars with these cherries to last throughout the winter.

Cherry pie is an all-American classic dessert - a necessity in the summertime! It wasn�t difficult to make this recipe with Turkish ingredients as everything was fairly similar. However, how I decided to mold the pies turned out to be a real pain!

Last year, I received this cute, plastic pie mold as a wedding present. Something I never used until now because I never had the time when I was working full-time in the U.S. Well, it might be the last time I use it because making these individual pies were a pain in the butt! The mold is easy to use, but my pies didn�t seal all the way so the cherry juices came oozing out while baking in the oven.

Maybe I�ll try again down the road as I don�t give up easily. But for now, I�ll share the cherry pie filling recipe with you. Let me know what you decide to create with your Turkish visne.

Afiyet Olsun!

At least these cherry pies sure look cute! Hubby approved and ate his serving with
 my homemade peach ice cream. Meanwhile, I enjoyed mine for breakfast.

Visne (Sour Cherry) Pie Filling

Ingredients:
70 ml. (2.5 oz.) cold water
30 g. (3.5 T.) misir nisastasi (cornstarch)
825 g. (29 oz.) visne (sour cherries), rinsed and pitted (Note: I purchased 1 kilo, but this is the amount I ended up with after I destemmed and pitted the cherries.)
210 ml. (7.5 oz.) water
230 g. (8 oz.) vanilla sugar or plain granulated sugar
1 T. fresh lemon juice
25 g. (-1 oz.) butter

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the cold water and cornstarch together. Set aside.
2. Place the water in a medium-sized saucepot. Bring to a boil. Whisk in the starch mixture. Return to a boil. (This happens rather quickly.)
3. Add the sugar, lemon juice and butter. Simmer until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture has thickened.

The mixture will look like this and boil very quickly.

4. You may have some starch lumps so you can strain the mixture, using a metal sieve. Then pour the hot syrup over the the cherries and mix gently, using a rubber spatula.
5. Let the cherries cool completely before adding to your pie shells.

Just a spoonful of cherries.

This filling also could be used and served alongside cheesecake or as a topping for ice cream.

Or use your favorite pie dough recipe and make a large cherry pie or individual ones like I did below.

After cutting out star shapes from your pie dough, place 1 star in the mold with
1+ Tablespoon of the cherry pie filling.

Place a second star, with a ventilation cut-out, on top. Slightly press down to seal
the edges. Then press the mold together, clamping down, to seal tightly.

Place your finished stars on a baking sheet. Place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes
so the dough has time to chill. Brush an egg wash over the top of each star.
Bake at 400 F/200 C for about 20 minutes or until the edges are
golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Remove from the trays shortly after
removing from the oven or they will stick if any filling has oozed out.