Now that it is cherry season you should not miss the opportunity to prepare and enjoy a delicious dessert with cherries. Not only they taste very good by themselves, but also they are even better with something sweet. For example, with sweet cream cheese. That sounds good, doesn’t it?. Inspired by the classic French strawberry pie with a pastry base, a cream filling and fresh fruit on top, you can prepare a cherry and cream cheese pie. Plus, it is super easy, beautiful and delightful.
Fresh Cherry and Cream Cheese Pie Recipe
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Serves: 4 Time: 1 h Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
500 g of cherries
250 g of cream cheese at room temperature
200 ml of whipping cream (30% fat), very cold
3 tablespoons of icing sugar
1 sweet shortcrust pastry (click for recipe)
125 g of flour, sifted
60 g butter, cold
1 small egg
1 dash of milk
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 lemon zest (optional)
Directions
Prepare the pastry (handmade or using a robot)
Mix the flour with the butter cut into cubes until you get a sandy consistency.
Add the egg, the sugar and the dash of milk.
Knead until dough is smooth. Do not knead too much, to avoid that the dough becomes elastic.
Form a ball, cover with plastic wrap and set aside in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.
Prepare the filling
In a large bowl, whisk the cream cheese until smooth. Mix two tablespoons of sugar. Reserve.
Whip the cream. When it begins to be firm, add a tablespoon of icing sugar and whip cream until it is very firm.
Add half of the cream into the bowl with the cheese and mix gently.
Then, gently fold in the other half of whipped cream.
Reserve in the refrigerator.
Bake the pastry
Preheat the oven to 175 º C, heat top and bottom.
Spread the dough with a rolling pin on a floured surface. It should be sufficiently spread to cover a mold of 23 cm in diameter.
Butter and flour the mold. Roll the dough around the rolling pin, roll out the dough into the mold and cut off the excess with the rolling pin.
Make holes with a fork over the surface.
Cut a sheet of parchment paper in a circle shape and place in the bottom of the pie. Fill with baking beads or legumes.
Bake in the middle rack for 20-25 minutes.
Once baked, remove the balls or legumes being careful not to burn yourself. Remove from the mold and let it cool on a wire rack.
While the dough is in the oven, wash the cherries, remove the tail, cut in half and pit them. Reserve.
Just before serving, garnish the pastry with the cheese mixture and top it with cherries. Enjoy !
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Use the variety of cherries that you like most.
This pie must be eaten quickly because the base is softened soon.
Legumes can be reused for to bake more pastries, but you should not eat them.
You can pit the cherries by hand, with a small knife, although there are specific tools to do so.
You can see a more detailed recipe for the shortcrust pastry and tips to spread and bake following the link.
To whip the cream faster, use a chilled container (kept in the freezer for half an hour, for example).
