Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 8 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup butter
- 4-6 tablespoons ice cold water
- 1 Egg
- Coarse Sugar to sprinkle on top
- 2 cups pitted cherries
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon flour
- Pinch of salt
Preparation
Make your dough first at it will need time to chill before you roll it out. Place the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and give it a quick pulse to mix everything together. Add the cold butter and pulse again until the mixture looks like coarse sand. Now start adding the cold water — only 4 tablespoons to begin with and see how that goes — and keep pulsing. It should come together in a ball in about a minute. Ad more water if you need to. I didn't. Scoop your ball of dough out of the food processor and place on a work surface. Use your hands to shape it into a flat disc. Wrap it up in wax paper or cling film and chill it in the fridge for at least an hour.
You may have some thoughts about getting ahead and making your filling in advance or even as soon as you place the dough in the fridge. I did and it was a big mistake — the cherries released all of their juices and there was no way they were going to sit in politely in my little hearts of dough instead of spilling everywhere. Okay?
Once your hour is up, you can take the dough out of the fridge and place it on the counter to warm up slightly. Now preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Now get a bowl and toss together the cherries, sugar, flour and salt.
And roll out your dough quite thinly. The recipe called for 1/8th to 1/16th of an inch thick. How can you possibly tell?! Just roll it as thin as you can without it becoming transparent. Use a 3 or 4 inch heart cookie cutter to cut out the dough. Place half of the hearts on the parchment lined trays.
To the other half of your hearts you'll need to cut some vents. You can make a small criss cross or get clever like I did and cut out another little heart. This is a lot of trouble and baking will obliterate all your efforts. I'm just saying.
Scoop about 2 teaspoons of cherry filling into the middle of each heart on the baking tray. Work pie by pie as the filling may start to spread and give you a hard time. Place another heart on top. Use a fork to crimp down the edges of each pie. Keep going until all the pies have tops. Now whisk and egg and splash of water together in a small bowl. Brush this egg was over the top of the pies. Then sprinkle with your coarse sugart. Place in the oven for 15 minutes until the pastry is golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly on the tray before removing them to a cooling rack. Serve with love. Ahhhhh.