Family Focaccia and Feast Day Pie

It's been a busy week, and I have two baking projects to tell you about--the best rosemary focaccia with garlic that I baked with my daughter and then the world's best cherry pie in memory of my mom.  Make sure you read all the way down to see it all!

First...the Family Focaccia

I've been doing all of this wonderful baking with Rose's Alpha Bakers, and the Bread Bible Alpha Bakers, and often my kids aren't around to taste the results!  This weekend I had a chance to bake some of my favorite Rosemary Focaccia from The Bread Bible for my favorite people.

Here's my daughter Jessica in on the baking.  We made a double batch of the Rosemary Focaccia.  Jessica is inserting slivers of poached garlic into the risen dough.  I love this bubbly dough that results in such a crisp and chewy focaccia.

The garlic is poached in olive oil and then stored in the refrigerator in the oil.  We drizzled some of the oil on top of the focaccia.  Here Jessica is sprinkling the dough with chopped rosemary fresh from the garden.  We also sprinkled it with a little bit of coarse sea salt before baking.

A pizza stone is placed in the oven when pre-heating, and then the focaccia is baked on top of the stone to ensure a crisp bottom crust.

Isn't this irresistible?  It's crunchy, fragrant with garlic, olive oil and rosemary, and warm from the oven.  The beautiful cook is an added bonus!

Our son Dustin and my husband Smitty are bonding beneath the hood of a car. I think that petroleum is the scent of father-son love at our house.  They are in their own little world when they are immersed in a car project.   However, they do welcome snacks delivered to the garage.  (Look how dirty Dustin's pants are.  I am so glad I don't do his laundry any more.)

I am always amazed at how filthy they get.  You would think I would be used to it by now.  I call this "Cartoon Dirty."  They're just so dirty, they look like cartoon characters.

Will he eat that last bite from his greasy fingers?!  Dustin says "yes."  Blech!  

Feast Day Cherry Pie

August 2, 2010 was the day that my beautiful, beloved mother went to heaven.  I decided to follow the ancient Christian tradition of honoring that anniversary as a feast day.  Every year we commemorate the day with a special meal and do something to honor my mom.

This year I baked a cherry pie in her memory.  It was her favorite fruit pie.  She would have loved this one, it's the best cherry pie I've ever had.

The recipe is the from The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  

I used canned sour cherries because I can never find fresh tart cherries, or even frozen.  The canned cherries make a delicious pie, however.  

The real secret to this fantastic pie is this concentrated cherry juice.  I took a bottle of cherry juice from the grocery store and boiled it down until it was syrupy.  A couple of tablespoons of this syrup added to the filling boosts the cherry flavor to make this pie incomparable.  The cherry concentrate keeps indefinitely in the freezer. 

When I make pie crust, I usually make several and freeze them.  I wrap up the pastry discs in plastic wrap and then freeze them in vacuum sealed bags.  I always feel rich with several pie crusts ready in the freezer, but  we never leave them in the freezer for very long!  

The pastry is trimmed into a nice circle with the help of a pot lid that's the right size, and a sharp paring knife.  This is the bottom crust.  It's transferred to the pie plate and then chilled for at least an hour before the filling and top crust is added.  As usual with pastry, colder is better.

Me and my bright ideas...I wanted to make cute little flower cutouts on the top crust.  The crust softened, the cutouts didn't come cleanly away, and then I couldn't get the top crust centered on the pie.  

Oh well.  I put some of the little lopsided cutouts on the top crust and sprinkled the whole pie with turbinado sugar.  The sugar adds a little crunch.

Mom's Feast Day Cherry Pie.  It's a real winner!  If there is cherry pie in heaven, I'm sure it tastes just like this!

P.S. See these pastry trimmings?  NEVER throw them away!   I will wrap them up and add them to my collection in the freezer.  It's easy to gently roll them together to make another pie crust.  See page 15 of the Pie and Pastry Bible.

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