You guys know me: always putting slightly odd ingredients in sweet, baked dishes. Sometimes it is by mistake (i.e. the chili powder that accidentally replaced the cinnamon in an apple pie — though that was a happy accident as it was really good) and sometimes intentional (pepper and bitters in strawberry pie the other day; also really good). This time I thought I would do another “intentional experiment”: red wine and Chinese 5-spice powder in cherry pie. While there is some dispute about what is even in five spice powder (some mixtures have anise, cinnamon, star nnise, cloves, and ginger while others replace the ginger with Sichuan peppercorns or fennel. And then there are other 5-spice mixtures what have all of those, which would actually make it 7 spice mix, but who’s counting?!?). And the red wine of course goes great with the cherries. So, another happy experiment.
I’m not sure this is tremendously “summery” really. I guess this strikes me more as an autumn pie, but cherries are harder to come by then, but you could always used jarred cherries, I suppose.
