Spiced cherry pie

1. Preheat oven to 180 ° C. Grease pie dish.

2. Sift flour and pinch of salt. Rub in butter until crumbly. Add sugar. Add 2-4 tablespoons of water. Mix.

3. Gather dough. Divide into two balls. Flatten balls and roll into circles large enough to line pie dish. Put one circle in base of pie dish. Wrap and chill remaining circle.

4. In a pan combine the cherries, spices, sugar and lemon juice, and heat over a gentle flame.

5. Scoop out # 188- cup of the liquid that has gathered in the pot and mix with the cornflour until dissolved.

6. Add cornflour mixture to cherries and stir over low heat until the mixture boils and thickens. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

7. Pour filling into pie dish, cover with remaining dough and cut edges with a knife to remove excess pastry from sides. Remember the pastry will shrink, so do not cut off too much.

8. Roll out excess pastry and use cookie cutters to shape decorative cut-outs, using the beaten egg wash as glue. Glaze pastry with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar.

9. Prick or slice pastry to allow steam to escape during cooking. Bake for 40 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and crunchy.

Note: My pastry tears very easily and is very, very difficult to manoeuvre. The pay off for your patience is that it's crunchy and delicious when you eat the pie.

Note: My original blueberry pie recipe used only half the pastry ingredients but upon making this for my cherry pie I did not have enough pastry. The measurements you see above are the doubled version which I think will be much better and allow excess for decoration.

Note: You can make the filling and pastry the day before. I would refrigerate the base already fitted to the tin and the lid rolled out flat onto the plate. Bring everything to room temperature before pouring the cherries filling into the pie base and ensure your pastry lid is malleable to fit and seal. Bake as above.

Cherries are my theme for Weekend Herb Blogging this week and I've blogged the history and uses of these wonderful plump fruits before (check it out).

Check out all the recap and other WHB recipes from this week at Katie's Eat This!.