Smallsteps officially turned ten today.
Never again will she be a single-digit age and it will be ninety years before she gets another one added. If humanity survives that long, that is - though I don't talk to her about my reservations for the species.
Instead, I made her a special breakfast.
It was still a school day and normally she eats something normal for her breakfast like cereal or yoghurt, but today I baked her some croissants (froze, gluten-free) with lactose-free "nutella", watermelon, strawberries with a card (guarded by a little soft toy) that said we would go to her favourite burger place in the evening. And then after talking for a bit, she went and got ready and trotted off to school, my wife to work, and me to a meeting in the city.
Once I got home...
The slaughter began.
About two kilos of very ripe cherries got put to the sword, or the small paring knife as the case might have more accurately been. The cherries were so ripe that the job was pretty easy wearing a pair of Dexter gloves, but since I didn't set up an appropriate kill-room, it still got pretty messy. With white stone counter tops, you'd think I would be a little concerned, but I have done similar before and they survived, and I was confident in their ability.
As long as it is cleaned quickly enough.
And speaking of white...
As Tony Montana as this appears, it is gluten-free flour for when I was rolling the base from a store-bought packet I picked up. Next time I will try and make my own dough, but I didn't want to risk it, even though what this was, was not ideal for what I was doing, and it was impossible to pick up in one piece to line the dish. Instead, I lumped it all in there again and spread it as evenly as I could with my fingers.
Pastry aside, I was really happy with the way the filling turned out, as it was thick, rich, had subtle notes of almond and vanilla, and tasted great. It also smelled brilliant and even Smallsteps, who had come home from school when I was about halfway through making it (took me almost three hours) loved the smell filling the home.
I was really happy with the reduction of the juices that got poured through the cherries and created almost like a cherry caramel.
I unfortunately couldn't find raw, course sugar at the shop, but we had some other brown sugar kind of similar, so I used that instead. Not as pretty for sure, but gave a little bit extra texture.
But, the true test is the taste, which we did as a dessert after coming home from the burger place. Now as I mentioned, my family is not really big on cherry, so I wasn't expecting glowing reviews, but I was surprised at how positive they were. I served it with a thick vanilla sauce and while y wife thought it could be sweeter (which is unusual coming from her), Smallsteps said it was about the right sweetness, and gave me a running "Master Chef" review, since she has been watching the Australian version of it and thinks herself a bit of a connoisseur now.
After we had a piece each, there was a mass left over so I ran about a third of it over to the neighbours family and had a chat with them for a bit with Smallsteps, and then was about to run two slices over to the elderly neighbours on the other side of us, when the wife knocked on the door with her yearly gift of a half-dozen tomatoes. So it worked out perfectly. There is still about a quarter of the pie left, though I might have a sliver more before bed - to help me dream.
Smallsteps' birthday is the day before our wedding anniversary, so it is easy not to forget the date nor the number, since it is plus a year. And, it is also handy so far because we have got her number balloons for her age, and in six months from now it will be ten years that I have been on Hive - so I always have a picture to share. Though, I think next year we are skipping the balloons.
I would call my first pie, a success.
Taraz
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