Here’s one I’ve been making since I was a teenager. It’s a lift from a very old Sunset magazine recipe. When you’re up to speed on this recipe, it can be cranked out in fifteen minutes flat.
Double Cream Cherry Pie
Easy Cheesecake Adaptation
Preparation time: 25 Minutes
Serves: 8 People
Ingredients:
1 21 oz Can of Comstock Ruby Red Cherry pie filling
1 8 oz Brick of cream cheese
1 8 oz Carton of heavy whipping cream
1 Tsp Lemon juice
1 Graham cracker pie crust
¼ Cup Powdered sugar
½ Tsp Vanilla extract
¼ Tsp Almond extract
Preparation:
Bring the cream cheese to room temperature while chilling the bowl and beaters for whipping the cream. In a medium bowl combine the cream cheese, some of the vanilla, powdered sugar and lemon juice and use the back of a wooden spoon to cream all ingredients into a smooth paste. In a separate bowl whip the cream to half stiff, where the peaks just barely hold. Just before finishing whipping the cream, beat in the vanilla and almond extracts.
Very slowly add some of the whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture. It is best to coat the wooden spoon in the whipped cream and mix that small amount into the cream cheese for at least three or four times. After that, slowly increase the amount of whipped cream to a few tablespoons at a time. This will help avoid lumping in the finished product.
Once the double cream mixture is finished, open the pie crust and gently spoon the mixture into the center of the shell. Carefully spread out the double cream until it is evenly distributed in the shell with a slight dome at the center. Open the tin of cherries and use a fork to scoop them out. The fork will allow you to leave behind the extra glaze that will otherwise overflow the pie shell. Starting at the center, evenly place the cherries on top of the double cream working towards the edges.
If needed, fill any gaps in the top surface of the pie with some of the extra glaze that is left over from the tin of cherries. Once the entire surface of the pie is covered with the fruit, take the clear cover of the shell, remove the label and invert it over the pie. Crimp the foil edges to retain the cover and chill for another 30-45 minutes before serving. The cover will help the pie to avoid picking up any other food odors in the refrigerator and assists when transporting it as well.
Addenda: There are new “buttercrust” pie shells and other flavors besides Graham cracker that can add some zing to the pie. If you make the pie a day ahead of time, the shell will draw out some moisture from the double cream filling and make it much more dense. It becomes almost indistinguishable from a real baked cheesecake.
Note: Chill the cherries beforehand if time is of the essence. This will reduce the time to table. Other types of fruit may be used. The blueberry filling works well for those who are not fond of cherries.
And repeated searching thru google has failed to turn up the right recipe. The one we used to make has only a few ingredients, including instant lemon pudding, cream cheese, milk, and a graham cracker crust, possibly some lemon juice – it’s the proportions that I don’t know.