- Hey, everyone.

(bright music) Welcome back to another episode of "The Baking Journal."

Today, we are making this awesome cherry pie, and I am going to show you how to make this gorgeous wreath design.

Let's get started.

So, because our delicious cherry filling needs to cool off before we actually assemble the pie, we're gonna start with this to give it time to do its little cool down.

And what I have here are 2 pounds of defrosted frozen cherries.

But if you have fresh cherries, that would be awesome too.

To the cherries, I'm adding sugar, cornstarch, salt, vanilla and almond extracts, and freshly squeezed lemon juice.

We're gonna let this come to, not a rolling boil, but we want this to get good and hot.

You'll see it start to thicken, and when it thickens, then we're just gonna cook it for a couple minutes more and it'll be done.

This is looking fabulous.

So we're gonna take it off the heat and let it cool down.

While our cherry filling is cooling, it's time to make the crust.

To a mixing bowl, we're putting in some all-purpose flour, and just a little bit of salt, like about a fourth of a teaspoon.

Get that mixed up.

I have here some butter, two-and-a-half sticks to be exact, that I cut into smallest cubes as I could, and I'm just gonna put this in the flour.

I'm gonna break them apart.

And what we're going for here is the size of small peas.

So, I'm just, right now, just breaking it up, and as soon as I feel like I've got my cubes broken up, I'm just going to start to blend that in.

I wanna add a little bit of sugar to our pie dough.

Add in two-thirds cup of water, and begin mixing with a fork.

To finish the dough, turn it out onto the counter and knead by hand until it comes together.

Divide it in half and make two small disks.

Wrap them in plastic wrap and place in the fridge to chill.

Our pie dough has been in the fridge for a little over 30 minutes, and now we're ready to roll.

You can see those butter chunks, that is exactly what you wanna see in your pie dough.

I'm rolling it out to about one-fourth inch thick, and then rolling the pie crust up onto my rolling pin and gently unrolling it onto my aluminum pan, pressing it down gently into the pan.

So here, we have it in the pan.

I'm just gonna put this in the refrigerator and let it rest while I roll out the top crust.

Now, today, we are making our cherry pie look like a pretty wreath.

You can do whatever you normally would do for your top crust.

If you wanna do a lattice, if you just wanna put this over the top, that is awesome.

It's gonna taste great.

But I wanna show you how to do this whole wreath decoration.

So, to start, I'm just gonna cut a round circle out in the center.

You're gonna see the cherry filling in this center.

It's gonna look gorgeous.

Now, I'm gonna grab my bottom crust that's in the refrigerator.

We're gonna fill it with our cherry filling, and I'll show you how to get this top crust on.

I'm just gonna do the same as I did before to get this transferred over, but this time I'm gonna be careful, and really try and center that open area.

Take a scissors, and just trim it up.

I wanna leave a half an inch on the sides.

I'm gonna pop this just back into the fridge, and we're gonna do some cutouts for our design.

For this wreath, I'm using just some leaf cookie cutters that I have, but you could make a wreath with whatever design you wanted.

You just basically wanna cut enough so that you can go all around the wreath.

So it's as easy as that.

Last but not least, cut out three strips of dough, one a little wider than the others.

Let me show you how to make that cool little bow on top of your wreath.

We're just taking one of the strips that we cut from our pie dough.

It doesn't really matter how long it is.

What you just think about is how big of a bow do you want?

I'm just gonna take off the edges, and then all we're gonna do is we're gonna bring both of the ends to the middle and we're just gonna press down and kind of pinch it.

We're gonna take our other strip.

We're gonna go around the center, and just bring it around to the back and cut off the extra, press down, and kind of give it another little pinch so that your bow has a little depth.

And then, just because we wanna keep these little loops open, I have just little pieces of aluminum foil (foil crunches) that I'm just gonna ball up into a little cylinder, and we're just gonna place that in each of the loops.

And then once the pie is finished, we'll just take those out and we'll have the coolest little open bow.

I'm using a little egg wash to act as my glue for all of the leaf decorations.

Just start at the top and work your way around, placing your cutouts as you like.

This is where you can really be creative.

So have fun and make it how you like it.

I could play with this forever you guys, but I think we're to the point where we're ready to put our bow on.

And then now, let's add two little tails.

And now, let's finish off the edges.

And all I'm gonna do is take my scissors and cut little, maybe, half-inch slices, whichever direction you want.

All we're gonna do is take each little piece and overlay it onto the next, and go on all the way around.

Top the pie with a little more egg wash, and then it goes into a 425-degree preheated oven for 15 minutes.

Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees, and bake for another 50 minutes or so.

Let's slice into this cherry pie and give it a try.

Oh my goodness, look at that wonderful cherry filling.

So, I am anxious to give it a try.

(gentle upbeat music) The filling in the cherry pie, with that little bit of almond extract in there, just gives it an extra element that you will love.

And then the buttery, flaky pie crust is just out of this world.

I hope you've enjoyed watching this video.

Please make sure you subscribe, hit that Like button, and I will see you again soon on another episode of "The Baking Journal."