Recipe: Cherry Pie
This week I bought 20 pounds of cherries. ($1.75/pound — what's the best price in your area right now?) With all that wealth on hand, I decided to try my hand at fresh cherry pie, instead of using canned cherry pie filling. My kids helped me pit the cherries, which sped the process tremendously. Since I didn't have the patience or skill for a lattice-work top, but wanted to see the lovely color of the filling, I used a cookie cutter to cut a pattern of circles into the top crust before I laid it on the filling. I was pretty pleased with the results. My 20 year old daughter took one bite and said, "Wow! This tastes like real cherries, not fake candy cherries."
I agree.
Preparation time: 1-1/2 hours (30 minutes of prep, not counting making pie crust)
Makes 1 pie
Ingredients
- 5 cups cherries, pitted
- 1-1/4 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- pastry for one double-crust pie
Pit cherries. Mix all ingredients for filling in a large bowl or a zip-top bag. Stir or shake until well combined. Place ingredients in a pastry-lined pie pan. Lay on top crust and pinch two crusts together. Cut vent slits in top crust, and flute edges. Bake at 350°F for 55-60 minutes.
What variety of cherries did you use? Here in SoCal all we see in the stores or fruit stands are Bing cherries and Rainier cherries. I always thought you needed a “pie cherry”, presumably a more sour cherry, to make cherry pie. Can I do it with Bings? I buy pounds of cherries each summer to put up jam and chutney, but I’ve never attempted pie with them. Do I just cut back on the sugar? Is there not enough pectin in a sweet cherry to make a pie?
Inquiring minds…
I made this recipe with Bing cherries, just as written above, and it turned out great! Sweet, but not overly so.
Have fun!
Mary