A few years back, we lived in Princeton, New Jersey, where my husband attended seminary. If you were to stop me on the street and ask me what the best part of living in New Jersey was, I would answer without hesitation: the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch markets. More specifically, their soft pretzels.* Followed closely by their desserts: fried hand pies, whoopie pies, and sticky buns. Followed closely again by the Garden State’s fabulous (and affordable) farmer’s markets.

Let’s all take a moment of thoughtful gratitude for Amish baked goods.

Our favorite fried hand pies at the Amish market always had a good-sized pat of cream cheese in them, which I think is sheer genius. Hold this thought.

I knew, when I was planning the pie for this weekend, that it was going to be primarily consumed by The Husband, because I was going to be out of town at a conference. This meant that the pie had to be cherry—his favorite. The best cherry pies in his book are made from Michigan cherries, where he spent a number of memorable childhood summers sipping cherry-ade at The Cherry Hut. Lucky me, I found a forgotten bag of Michigan pie cherries in the freezer. Taking a nod from our Amish dessert experts above, I decided to up the ante by adding dollops of cream cheese. Behold, the Don’t-Forget-Me-While-I’m Gone Cherry Pie.

The Don’t-Forget-Me-While-I’m-Gone Cherry Pie

I did manage to get one slice of this pie before I had to leave, and it was delicious. The filling is primarily borrowed from The Best Recipe’s Lattice Top Cherry pie, to which I’m partial, but the cream cheese was a nice addition. Unfortunately, it didn’t physically integrate into the pie well, and next time I might consider creaming it with the sugar before stirring them both into the cherries. Also, the pie turned out a little soupy because I forgot to compensate for the high proportion of cherry juice in this particular batch of cherries. That said, the pie evidently served as a reminder of me several times a day over the course of the weekend, being as it was gone by the time I got home.

* Though soft pretzels closely rival pie in my food love rankings (and would likely win on most days—gasp!), this is a pie challenge and a pie blog, so this post will stick to the fried hand pies.

The Don’t-Forget-Me –While-I’m-Gone Cherry Pie
Adapted only slightly from The Best Recipe’s Lattice-Top Cherry Pie

Ingredients:
1 recipe pie dough (you can use the same one I used here)
¼ c. cornstarch
1 ¼ c. sugar
¼ tsp. cinnamon
a pinch of salt
6 c. sour pie cherries (frozen or fresh)
¼ tsp. almond extract
3 oz. cream cheese

Roll half the pie dough out to a circle approximately 11 inches in diameter. Fit into a greased 9-inch pie pan. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Soften the cream cheese in the microwave. Stir together with the cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and almond extract. Add to the cherries and stir to distribute evenly. Add the filling to the unbaked piecrust. [This is what I would do next time. In reality, I just placed pats of cream cheese on top of the cherry filling before I added the top crust, and the cream cheese didn’t incorporate itself at all. Still tasty, but not the most skillful or beautiful in terms of presentation.]

Roll out the remainder of the pie dough to a circle approximately 10-11” in diameter. Dipping your fingers in cold water, dampen the rim of the bottom crust (to ensure a tight seal), and place the top crust over the pie. Press gently along the rim to seal. Trim the selvedges of the dough to about an inch overhang, then fold under and crimp decoratively. Cut several vent holes in the top of the pie.

Lower the oven temperature to 425 degrees, and bake the pie for 25-30 minutes, or until the crust is set and begins to brown. Lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake an additional 25-30 minutes, or until crust is brown and the juices are bubbly. Cool and serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

 

This pie. This pie almost convinced me to quit the Pie A Week challenge right then and there, because I knew it would all be downhill from then on out. The apples maintain their own distinct flavor, but the caramel creeps in on the edges, and the streusel! All streusel wants to taste like this streusel.

We tried this pie at a variety of temperatures (all in the name of science), and I decided that I like it best at room temperature. A dollop of fresh whipped cream on top doesn’t hurt either.

When I first talked about baking a pie once a week, I made sure to emphasize that I would be giving most of the pie away. Ha!

Caramel Apple Streusel Pie (made 9/19/2015)

Piecrust: (Alternatively, if you have no regard for anything holy, you may use a premade piecrust and skip to the pre-baking step.)
1 c. flour
pinch of kosher salt
1/3 c. shortening
ice water

Caramel Sauce:
½ c. (1 stick) butter
½ c. sugar
1 Tbsp. molasses
1/8 tsp. salt
¼ heavy whipping cream

Apple Filling:
9 medium apples (I used Jonathans, because I like their quintessential apple-y flavor)
¼ c. lemon juice
½ tsp. cinnamon

Streusel topping: (modified from the streusel in Bon Appetit’s Sour-Cherry Streusel pie here)
1 ½ c. flour
½ c. + 2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. molasses
¼ tsp. kosher salt
½ c. butter, melted
½ tsp. vanilla

1. Assemble the crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the salt and flour together in a small mixing bowl. Add the shortening and mix with a pastry blender or your fingers until you have a bowl of pea-sized crumbles. Add ¼ cup of ice-cold water (not the ice cubes) to the mixture. Mix with pastry blender or fingers until the mixture holds together in one ball, adding additional ice water a tablespoon at a time as needed, but being careful not to add too much water. Avoid adding too much water, which will make the pie dough sticky; if this happens, add a little more flour.

Roll to 1/4” thick and fit into an ungreased standard or extra deep (I prefer the latter) pie pan. Trim the edges so that there is a 1-inch overhang all around the pie pan. Fold the selvedge under and crimp with fingers or a fork all around the rim. Prick crust with a fork and bake for 8-10 minutes, using pie weights [which I don’t have, unless someone buys me some for Christmas—I use a smaller pie pan placed on top of a layer of parchment paper set inside the unbaked piecrust]. Set aside. Raise oven temperature to 375 degrees.

2. Make caramel sauce: In a medium saucepan, combine butter, sugar, molasses, and salt. Cook over medium heat until it comes to a boil, stirring frequently. Continuing to stir, allow to boil for one more minute. Add whipping cream and return to a boil, stirring constantly and allowing to boil for 2-3 minutes further. Pour into the partially baked piecrust.

3. Prepare filling: Keeping the apple skins on, slice apples ¼” thick. (I used my mandolin for this, and it worked well.) Toss apple slices with lemon juice and cinnamon. Layer in piecrust on top of caramel sauce.

4. Prepare streusel topping: The way you’re supposed to assemble this is by first mixing all the dry ingredients, then rubbing the wet ingredients in with your fingers to achieve an overall crumbly texture. The truth is that I threw everything together in a bowl, mixed it thoroughly with my pastry blender, and then more or less played with it with my fingers until it was crumbly. Local sources (a.k.a. the husband and me) say it tastes just as good this way. Carefully pour [–pile, balance–] on top of the apple layer. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the caramel begins to bubble slightly and the streusel is browned. Allow to fully cool before cutting to allow the caramel sauce to set up.

a pie to write home about