Okay, so Cherry Crisp, the first thing we do, people say, oh man, I can't really do it. I can't go through all that trouble with the fresh ones because they are too much work. So I had to figure out a way to do it easy, to get the pits out of these cherries the easy way.
Now, everybody had probably got a whole drawer full of these at home from all those Chinese takeouts, but we are not going to use the chopsticks, but you can't throw them away. Like the little Chinese mustard down in the soy sauce packet, they are five years old, but we still have them.
Anyway, I found a use for these chopsticks. And what I will do, I will take a chopstick and take a cherry. I take the stem off the cherry now, and I am just going to, right where the stem used to be, I poked that chopstick right there, push it through, and the pit comes right off the other side, like so. And it's a whole lot easy. I used to cut them in half with a parry knife and try to dig those pits out.
Now, one, two, three, just take that stem off, take my leftover chopstick from Chinese takeout, and just push it right through, and get that pit right there on the other side, piece of cake.
Okay. Now, once I have done that to about four cups of them. You can even have the kids, the kids can do that. While they are watching cartoons on Saturday morning. I have tried it. Come on man, help me out. No.
Take four cups of cherries, to that we are going to add one cup of sugar, little bit less than a cup, that's a good amount right there.
Now, I am going to toss them together with the sugar. A little bit of Buster is nice right now, to put that in there; this is for some seasoning. The crump, the crisp topping that we are going to make, I am going to put some almonds in there, so if you have some almond extract, it would be really nice with these cherries.
Okay. Now, once the cherries are baked, they are going to get soft obviously, and the juices are going to run from the cherry. I don't want it to be running when I go put it on the plate later. So I have got a couple of tablespoons of flour here. I am going to add that. The flour is going to soak up that juice as it cooks, and it runs from the cherries, the flour is going to pick it up and it's going to hold it tight to the dish, so it doesn't run allover the place. I am going to mix that in.
Now, once this is altogether, we are going to place them on this side. I am just going to go on the side.
Now, the next thing we are going to do, we are going to put the topping together. And the topping starts out, in this measuring cup here I have got a cup-and-a-half of whole wheat flour. We have got about one cup of old-fashioned rolled out oats. We have got one cup of brown sugar in here, and there is about half a cup of almond slivers. You can use sliced almonds if you like, whichever you prefer.
I am going to put all this together into a bowl. I am going to work them all, mix these throughout.
Now, the next thing we are going to do, we are going to work the butter into this thing. Now, we talk a lot -- when I make a pie dough and pastries and things like that, we always want to have real cold butter, but if there is ever time when you really need cold butter it's now, because that's what's going to give it that crispy. When it's cold, it's easy to get crumbly, it won't get runny and greasy and whatever we are doing. So I want it to hold up, I want it to be cold and want it to hold up, so that when it bakes, I get that crisp topping like; I can't call it crisp, right?
So make sure the butter is cold. So you saw me, I took it right from the refrigerator. This is one cup of butter. Its been cut into small pieces, like you see. I am going to put that right into the dry ingredients.
Now, when I work these together, the same motion as you would do a pie dough. You could curl in with a couple of knives. I always like to get my hands in this stuff, ever since I was a kid, I like to make a mess.
Now, I want to break these pieces of butter down, a little bit smaller, and as that's happening, I am going to work in all the dry ingredients. You have got to work fast, because the heat of your hand is enough to melt that butter. I really don't want to have that soft crisp, I don't want to do that.
In Vegas, it's a little bit better. All the kitchens in Vegas are air conditioned, because obviously we can't work when it's 120 outside. I can't imagine how hot the kitchen gets when it's 120 outside. But see in New York, they wouldn't put air conditioning in the kitchens, they don't need it. We had some days out there that got up to 100, and when it's 100 out there, I know it's 120 in the kitchen; I have been trying to do this stuff when it was 120, and they are like, come on, give me a break. But the show must go on, that was our motto.
Now, when I worked this in, I squeeze with my hands, then I let it fall through my fingers, but then I give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat that process. I keep going around, and you see it, you see the crumbles starting to come together here.
Now, I have preset my oven for 400 degrees. Now, you see we have got a crumb topping. Now, you can look and see how it's all nice and crumby. You have got a nice healthy size pieces on there.
So now the next step is prepare, to prepare a crisp for the oven. Again, this is a real simple recipe. I take my cherries. I am going to go right into this -- you can go into any kind of baking dish you have got. I love cast iron, so I am going to use a cast iron, my skill here, and I am going to just cover the bottom. I am going to cover the bottom with these fresh cherries. Okay. That's perfect.
Now, the next step, we are just going to put this crumb topping right over the top. Now, I have seen guys, they cover the whole, they cover. I like to be able to pick in between and maybe see a little bit of cherries around the edges. But if you like -- people are really nuts about crumb topping, I mean you could cover it all the way if you like. I am going to do a pretty good job covering it, but then like I say, you could still be able to see the cherries a little bit. That's perfect.
Now, take this, it will go into a 400 degree oven. Now, we are going to let that cook. At 400 degrees, I am really going to start paying attention after about 20 minutes, but I am probably going to go about 40. But I want to see where it's at. Sometimes the arrow says 400, but you really don't know. I mean, when was the last time you had it calibrated at home, right? So it's a shot in the dark, really, a lot of times. But you have got to know it's happening, is that around the edges, when the cherries cook, the liquid obviously comes out, and you see the bubbling around the edge, and you will notice across the top, the crisp topping is going to start to get nice and golden brown. So once it's baking, let's say it's been -- after about 40 minutes, we are going to get cherry crisp, and it's going to look like this.
Okay. How's that? Okay. I will see you later. I live dangerously. So bon appétit. Thank you very much.
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