When Good Cherry Crisps Go Bad

Hi folks! Hope everyone is enjoying their tuesday. One day closer to the weekend. It will be our Canadian Thanksgiving this coming weekend. Still unsure what I'm making. I have a tendency to make too much food. And about a gazillion side dishes. I usually do multiple veggie choices and multiple desserts and always a few potato options. Which is really sad as we usually only have about 6 or 8 people here. Lol! So not sure why the need for overkill.. I am ordering a ham but it's a "Kim does not have to cook it"  kind of ham. It's one of those honey glazed kind. So basically I just have to unwrap the foil. So hard right. I may do turkey too. I usually do chicken for most holidays as we're not huge turkey fans. Yet I'm feeling like doing one and going all out. Yah, like I said issues with overkill and all that. Dessert will quite likely be an apple pie. If I can get organized in time I'd like to do chocolate cake for my brother. He always comes for holidays but he only really likes chocolate cake and I don't make it often. So think I owe him one.

Okay so this recipe is fantastic when executed correctly. When it's not it's a nightmare. How do I know that? Well because I had that nightmare recently. I can explain though. Really I can. You will shocked at my reason. Especially if you're a regular reader. Okay so here we go. The big explanation, the big reason, the huge excuse. Here it is:

Yup, blaming the puppy again. Honestly you would too. Sure she looks adorable but seriously this little ankle biter is hell on wheels. I was so distracted by the path of destruction she was causing that I forgot to mix the crisp properly. She's like a little wrecking ball ripping through the house. Honestly someone remind me why I wanted a puppy. Sure they are cute but is a cute puppy worth having bad food, and a house upside down. Ah, thank goodness she is cute or she'd be a goner. Like I've said before she'd be on the curb with her designer suitcase that matches her designer outfit. I'm sure someone would pick her up. She's really cute. Then they'll get her home and all their food will be ruined and their house will look like a hurricane blew through. Hurricane Malia. Yup, any takers??? Hopefully six months from now she will be a good little doggie and I will have no regrets. Right now I'm just questioning my sanity. But then I question my sanity every day for so many reasons.

So I make crisps often, particularly apple. This time I whipped up cherry with the wonderful ones I had left from St. Jacob's. You'd think given I am a pro crisp maker that I would have realized earlier that I forgot to add a main ingredient before popping it in the oven. I decided to cook it in my new cast iron pan. So I'm sure the excitement of using a new tool played into my forgetfulness. And like I said Hurricane Malia was not helping. So I got it all prepped and realized about 20 or 30 minutes in that I forgot to add the flour. Yup, I mean who does that? Pro crisper my butt. Seriously I should have my crisp card revoked. I looked in the oven and did the whole head tilt thing. Hm, where did I go wrong? Ah, yes flour dang it. Okay so I'm thinking "I can save this". Er, it's really hard to save a crisp gone wrong.  I think I also added to much lemon juice. I always add a splash but think I might have added a wave by accident. I'm sure Hurricane Malia was attached to my ankle at the time of said waviness. Anyhow I decided rather than throw it out I'd so a rescue mission on it. So I whipped up some topping with flour and proper ingredients and popped it back in the oven. It tastes amazing but it looks like crapola. I told my readers early on into blogging that I would post my failures as well as my successes so I'm keeping my promise to them. This is to prove we're all human, we all make mistakes and we all should not get puppies. Okay so that last statement is untrue. We don't all make mistakes. Ah, just kidding. We should all get puppies. Just don't try and cook with one present. Seriously, hire a sitter, or put them down for a nap, or drop them at the groomer's. Just don't bake with them underfoot. If you do this is fair warning you could potentially ruin some food. Don't say I didn't warn ya.

Okay so here we go, here's the recipe. Make sure you put all puppies away immediately.

"Bad Puppy" Cherry Crisp:

Ingredients:

Base:
4 cups pitted cherries (mine were Bing)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 ½ cups vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon corn starch

Topping:
1 cup flour
1 ½ cups brown sugar
1 cup oats
½ cup butter
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:

Grease a 10 inch cast iron pan.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In bowl pit all your cherries.

Now add lemon juice, vanilla sugar, 2 tablespoons of flour and the cornstarch. Mix well.

Pour this into the pan.

Take half the butter and drop in small pieces over the cherry mixture. Just here and there, no right or wrong way to do this.

In another bowl mix flour, brown sugar, oats, cinnamon, nutmeg and half your butter. Mix until crumbly. You can use hands or a fork or a pastry tool.

Pour this mixture over top of the cherries and smooth out.

If your a cinnamon and nutmeg fan like me you could add extra right over top.

Place in the oven and cook for 45 to 60 minutes.

You'll know when it's done as the filling starts the thicken and the topping will go a pretty golden colour.

Remove and let cool. Or serve warm if you can't wait. It's really hard to wait.

Serve with a smile.

Luckily all my mistakes did not affect taste. I had a bowl and was really happy with the taste of it. As you can see it didn't have enough time to cook right and there was too much liquid. But hey, it's all good if tastes good right. I made this a few days ago, just did not have time to post this until now. Hope you enjoy it. Make your own folks, super easy as long as no puppies are around.

Will be back later with a nice fish n chips post for you. Till then:

Toodles and smoochies. xx