Spiced Rum Cherry Piloncillo & Dark Chocolate Ganache Christmas Pie
Spiced Rum Cherry & Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Ganache Pie. I garnished with an absurd amount of demerara sugar, vanilla and nutmeg whipped cream, spoonfuls of the cherry syrup, cherries, and slivered almonds.
Kicking off chocolate cherry week on this blog today with a seriously decadent, seriously delicious pie. Google searches seem to associate chocolate and cherry with Valentine’s Day, however I associate these flavors with Christmas. Specifically cherry cordials and we have my grandma, who always had a bowl of the candy on her dining room table around Christmastime, to thank for this. I did not appreciate these candies as a child, perhaps because I accidentally bit into the alcoholic version before I had developed a taste for alcohol. Now though I appreciate the syrupy, sometimes alcoholic cherries covered with dark chocolate—to my adult palate there is hardly a holiday candy more pleasant.
What I wanted for this pie (and all 3 of the recipes I’ll be sharing this week) was to mimic the boozy, syrupy cherries paired with the chocolate. To me, a 65%-70% dark chocolate works best with these cherries and makes for an extremely luxurious pie. You could use half dark chocolate and half milk chocolate for the ganache if you wanted!
For the spiced rum cherry mixture, I added in piloncillo instead of granulated or brown sugar because of course I did. Feel free to swap the piloncillo for either sugars, but I love the way the earthy caramel flavor of the melted piloncillo pairs with the boozy, slightly tart cherries. I had dark rum on hand so that’s what I used; omit the alcohol if you don’t drink and try replacing it with up to ½ teaspoon of almond extract (almond extract is quite potent, so start by adding ¼ teaspoon and adjusting as you taste).
Gorgeous December cherries. I felt extremely guilty when I realized these came all the way from Chile since I prefer to eat local and seasonal as often as I can. I recommend using frozen cherries for this pie to save yourself from having to pit them and from the guilt.
Please feel free to make the pie a whole 24 hours ahead of serving. It will come together easily and pretty quickly. I riffed on this graham cracker crust from Sally’s Baking Blog; for the ganache I used a truffle ratio, meaning 2 parts chocolate to 1 part heavy cream. Three 3.5 ounce bars of dark chocolate equals 10.5 ounces, which means we will be using 5.25 (a little more than half a cup) of heavy cream.
For a cleaner presentation as well as a crunchier crust, spoon the cherry mixture on top of the ganache instead of underneath.
The pie has a bright, tart and sweet cherry flavor and the salty/crunchy from the crust is wonderful when paired with the lush, creamy ganache and I think will become a Christmas tradition for me. Tomorrow’s recipe is a linzer cookie using these same exact flavors; the final recipe will be dark chocolate and cherry truffles as long as everything goes smoothly today and tomorrow! Let us pray….
The pie before I went berserk with decorating.
NOTES:
A shortbread crust would work beautifully here as well, and in fact I wish I had gone that route if only because over time the graham cracker crust becomes quite soft underneath the syrupy cherries. I still love the flavor of the slightly salty crust though, so I’m not changing it. You can assemble the pie with the cherries on top instead of underneath the ganache, too! Assemble it this way: graham cracker crust, then ganache, then the cherries. This makes for a cleaner presentation, too, if that’s something you care about.
For the ganache you can steep the cream with a cinnamon stick if you wanted a deeper cinnamon flavor. You would have to bring the cream and cinnamon stick to a gentle boil, remove it from the heat to let it steep for at least an hour and then reheat it before pouring over the chopped chocolate. Obviously it is less time-consuming to add ground cinnamon to the ganache at the very end.
You will have leftover cherry syrup. Use any remaining syrup to pour over each slice of pie; spoon it over ice cream, or spread it on toast. Store the syrupy cherries in an airtight container in your fridge where it will keep for up to a week (freeze it for longer storage).
I am calling the cherry mixture “syrup” but it’s really more of a thickened compote, basically a jam with some syrup once completely cooled and especially after it has been chilled in the fridge for a little while. You can leave the cherries whole if you wish, or you can mash them up a bit with a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon for a chunky texture.
Even though it is possible to find gorgeous cherries right in the middle of December at the grocery store, I am assuming because of climate change, I recommend using frozen cherries here. This way you won’t have to deal with pitting them, nor will you have to deal with the guilt of December climate change cherries (assuming you are like me and have residual I-grew-up-in-the-Catholic-Church guilt). If using frozen cherries, you will need to thaw them out completely, then dry them with paper towels or a kitchen towel before using.
If you have any questions, you can always find me on Twitter or Instagram!
EQUIPMENT NEEDED:
Three saucepans (for the cherry mixture, the melted butter, and the heavy cream for the ganache. You can melt the butter in the microwave if you’d rather not dirty 3 saucepans, I get it).
Baking scale if weighing ingredients and measuring cups/spoons. You will need: 1 teaspoon, ½ teaspoon, ¼ cup, 1 tablespoon and ½ tablespoon measurement, and a liquid measuring cup (if you want to weigh the heavy cream instead of using a measuring cup, simply place the saucepan directly on the scale and pour in the cream until you have 5.25 ounces).
8 or 9-inch pie plate
Potato masher or wooden spoon, optional.
Whisk for making cornstarch slurry for the cherry mixture.
Food processor for grinding the graham crackers. (A large plastic freezer storage bag and a rolling pin can also be used here, just make sure to get the graham crackers as fine as you possibly can.)
Offset spatula or knife for smoothing ganache once it has been poured over the cherries.
Spiced Rum Cherry & Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Ganache Pie
Yield: 1 (8-9 inch) pie
Prep time: ~15 minutes
Active time: about 25 minutes
Bake time (only baked component is the crust): 8 minutes
Spiced Rum Cherry Piloncillo Mixture:
About 1 pound (~3 cups) fresh or frozen cherries (pits removed if using fresh)
Zest and juice from 1 large orange
1 cinnamon stick or 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 ounces piloncillo cone or ¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup dark rum, optional
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Chocolate Cinnamon Almond Graham Cracker Crust:
6 tablespoons salted butter (if using unsalted, add 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt)
150 grams (about 10 sheets) graham crackers
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
21 grams (heaping ¼ cup) slivered almonds
1 ½ tablespoons cocoa powder
Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Ganache:
10.5 ounces (three 3.5 ounce bars) 65%-70% dark chocolate
5.25 ounces heavy cream, straight from the fridge
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick
½ teaspoon kosher salt
To make the cherry mixture:
In a large saucepan set over medium-high heat add all the ingredients except the cornstarch. Cook down the cherries for about 10 minutes or until the mixture gets foamy. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook for an additional 5 minutes or until the fruit has softened quite a bit and the piloncillo cone has melted completely.
Using a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon, mash the cherries. This will help release even more of the cherry juice as well as help to break down any larger pieces of cherry. This step is optional.
Measure out 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a small bowl. Using the tablespoon measurement, carefully add about 4 tablespoons worth of the cherry juice straight from the saucepan to the cornstarch (additionally, you can use about ¼ cup cold tap water here).
Whisk the mixture until there are no cornstarch lumps left, to create a slurry. Add the slurry to the saucepan and stir; the mixture will thicken practically immediately. Carefully taste the syrup and adjust salt if needed. Remove saucepan from heat while you prepare the rest of the recipe.
To make the crust:
Heat oven to 350F.
In a small saucepan set over medium heat, melt the butter. Once melted remove saucepan from the burner and let cool while you make the rest of the crust.
In a food processor add the graham cracker sheets and pulverize until graham crackers are mostly crushed. Add the sugar, ground spices, and slivered almonds and continue to process until the mixture is very fine.
Transfer the graham cracker mixture to a mixing bowl. Add the cocoa powder and stir to combine.
Pour in the melted butter and stir everything together. The mixture should feel a bit like wet sand at this point.
Using either your hands or a measuring cup, press the crust into an 8-inch pie plate (up to 9 inches will work here) until crust is compact on both the bottom of the pie plate and the sides.
Bake crust for 8 minutes. Let cool completely then transfer to your freezer while you prepare the ganache.
To make the ganache:
Finely chop three 3.5 ounce bars of 65%-70% dark chocolate. Transfer chocolate to a heat-proof bowl.
Add 5.25 ounces (a little more than ½ cup) of cold heavy cream to a saucepan set over medium-high heat. Heat cream until it boils around the edges and immediately pour over the chopped chocolate. Let chocolate and cream sit undisturbed for 5 minutes.
After 5 minutes, very slowly begin to whisk the chocolate and cream together starting at the center of the bowl, slowly working your way outward until the ganache is completely smooth. Once ganache is completely smooth add the ground cinnamon and whisk just to combine.
To assemble the pie:
Remove graham cracker crust from your freezer. Spoon up to 1 cup of the Cherry Rum Piloncillo mixture on the bottom, then pour all of the ganache on top of the cherry syrup. It is fine if some of the cherries are poking out of the ganache! Smooth ganache over with an offset spatula and let the ganache set directly on your kitchen counter, uncovered.
Once the ganache has set, transfer pie to your fridge where it can hang out for up to 24 hours before serving.
Before serving: Remove pie from your fridge and set it on your counter for about 2-3 hours if it was chilling overnight. You’re just trying to get the ganache to a softer state at this point so you can easily slice into the pie.
Before serving garnish with whipped cream, spoonfuls of the Cherry Rum Piloncillo mixture and slivered almonds, if desired.