Cherry pie and the power of advertising

If there's one reason to love summer it is surely for the soft fruit. Cherries, nectarines, strawberries, gooseberries,....

Well, it wasn't going to be for the weather was it? It's raining here today and the temperature seems to have plummeted by about 10 degrees. Good old British Summer...

So anyway, cherries are half-price in the Co-op at the moment and I remembered seeing a blog post somewhere about cherry pie and thought I'd have a go. In hindsight, yesterday was not the best day for making pie. It was hot. Pastry, hot weather and having the oven on are not a good combination, especially if you are not paying attention (one eye was on the children in the paddling pool) and add too much liquid to the pastry.

I didn't follow MrsB's recipe exactly. I decided to make the delicious almond enriched pastry from Nigella's cranberry bakewell tart which you can find in the book 'Feast'. It is a deliciously crisp pastry that tastes a bit like marzipan - yum yum. Well, it's delicious if you actually like marzipan...which I do and will eat the off-cuts from covering the Christmas cake until I feel sick... but that's another story.

The pastry was difficult to manage even after a spell in the freezer and I had to do a fair bit of swearing patching on the base, but that's ok, you can't see it. When it came to the pastry lid I rolled it between 2 sheets of clingfilm which worked a treat.

I was surprised that the pie was not a hit with the children - they ate the pastry and left the cherries. Such a shame that I'll have to eat it all myself now.

Now, on to the power of advertising. You see that drink in the picture? Well I kept seeing this...

it seemed to be in every magazine I opened. White Grenache mixed with ginger ale and summer berries. It sounded good. It is good. But be warned - it goes down a little too easily!