Late summer’s bounty of fresh peaches and blackberries are yielding plenty of pies and jam.
These are fruits I love, but they aren’t my favorites. To find what I crave, I take a trip north to Door County for its signature tart red cherries that are perfect for baking, preserving, and soaking in brandy to make cherry bounce.
Door County’s cherry season (July and August) attracts cherry aficionados and tourists who come to indulge themselves in all that is cherry, along with carrying home a supply. To find these red delicacies, seek out pop-up stands and roadside orchards where the trees are covered with red polka dots. Those red dots are the county’s famous Montmorency cherries, a tart red cherry cultivated and imported from France to Door County in the early 1900s where it has remained the peninsula’s star agricultural attraction and cash crop.
Lautenbach’s Orchard Country, one of the county’s largest orchards, has become a destination thanks to its diverse activities and abundance of cherry products. Here you can pick your own cherries, sample cherry wines and ciders from the winery and cider press. There is also a variety of baked goods and Wisconsin cheeses laced with cherries.
Beyond picking a bucket of cherries, visitors can test their athletic ability and try to break the distance record for the Cherry Pit Spit. Long-distance cherry pit spitting has yet been deemed an Olympic sport, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still fun to try to beat the record.
Throughout Door County’s long list of cherry delights, the most unique is the Belgian Cherry Pie, a flat disc of sweet yeast-raised dough similar to Danish pastry that is spread with a cherry filling and topped with a sweet creamy cheese. I call it the love child of a cherry pie and cheesecake. The recipe was brought to the area by Belgian immigrants who settled in Southern Door County in the 1850s.
Gina Guth, owner of the Flour Pot, teaches the art of the Belgian Pie for Door County visitors and locals at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Sister Bay. The hour-long, hands-on class features Guth’s vintage family recipe. The recipe is used to produce hundreds of pies for Kermis, the annual late summer Belgian Festival in Door County’s Belgian village of Brussels.
It’s not too late to plan a cherry getaway to Door County and get your share of the fresh cherry harvest. If you’re craving cherries, here’s the official recipe used at Kermis for the Belgian Cherry Pie. The recipe is easy to master and great when served with a glass of Cherry Bounce.
BELGIAN CHERRY PIE
CRUST
1 ounce yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons warm water
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 eggs
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter
3 cups flour
Place yeast in a small bowl with one tablespoon sugar and pour water over yeast. Cover with wax paper or plastic wrap and let stand until bubbly. Heat cream over a medium heat until a skin forms on top. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, sugar, salt and room temperature butter. Add cream and beat, then add yeast. Add one cup flour and continue beating with mixer until dough creeps up the beaters. Remove dough from mixer and knead on a lightly floured surface, adding flour until it no longer sticks to your fingers. Dough will be soft, but you should be able to cause an indent in the dough that will stay. Cover and let rise until double in size while making the filling.
CHERRY FILLING
4 cups pitted tart cherries
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cherry juice
Drain cherries and reserve juice for glaze. Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in a saucepan. Gradually add the cherry juice and stir until smooth. Cook and whisk until thickened. Stir in the drained cherries.
CHEESE TOPPING
6 ounces dry curd cottage cheese
12 ounces small curd 4% cottage cheese
1/3 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
Separate egg whites from yolks and set aside the whites. Squeeze the moisture out of dry cottage cheese with a cheesecloth. Discard the liquid. In a food processor mix together small curd creamed cottage cheese alternating with the dry curd that has been drained of all whey. Add sugar to the cottage cheese mixture. Whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Add to the cheese and mix well.
ASSEMBLE AND BAKE PIE
Lay terry cloth towels on table with wax paper over them. Divide dough into fourths.
Let rise until double in size. Place each piece of dough in a greased pie pan and pat with fingers, leaving a ridge at edges to prevent the fillings from running over. Add the cherry filling (approximately one cup per pie). Cover the cherries with the cottage cheese topping, leaving some of the filling showing at the crust edge. Bake at 350 F until crust is golden brown. Set pies to cool on terry cloth towels that have been covered with flour sack towels. This helps absorb the moisture, so the crust doesn’t get soggy. Makes four pies.
CHERRY BOUNCE
1 pound cherries
3 cups sugar
4 cups spirit of choice (vodka, bandy, rum or whisky)
Pierce each cherry with a knife in one or two places to allow the spirits to soak in. Combine the sugar and one cup of liquor in a glass half-gallon jar. Shake or stir well to dissolve as much of the sugar as you can. Now add the fruit and shake again before adding the remaining liquor. Store the mixture in a sunny indoor spot for one week, then move it into a cabinet or closet for at least 40 days. After that, the bounce will keep indefinitely, stored at a moderate, even temperature. When ready to use, strain the cherries from the bounce and pour the cherry liqueur into a clean one-quart glass jar. Set the cherries aside for use as garnishes in cocktails or serve spooned on ice cream. Makes one quart.
