It’s Cherry season! Everywhere you look you see them, red, juicy, sweet or sour but mostly tasty and beautiful.
I love eating fresh cherries and my kids adore it. Nevertheless and regardless to cherry season, I had a bag of frozen cherries in the freezer that I had to use before it expired.
I never made cherry pie before, and so I decided this would be a great use for the cherries. After all in only one pie I can use 6 cups of cherries, why not then.
I Googled Cherry Pie recipes and I must say that they were all different, starting with the pie crust and ending with the filling itself. I looked at the recipes and decided to take a recipe from “Epicurious” and add my own modifications and here’s what I came up with.
2018 edit: we went cherry picking and got a whole lot of cherries so obviously I had to make a pie. I went back to this ol’ recipe and was able to update it and make it even better now. The crust comes out butter-flaky and just melts in your mouth. The filling is just right and not too liquid or runny or sweet – perfect!
- 2½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into cubes
- ¼ cup cold water (For adding in)
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 heaping Tbsp cornstarch
- ¼ cup water
- 4 cups whole pitted cherries (fresh or frozen)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla or almond extract - optional
- 2 Tbsp Butter (used to dot the pie before baking)
- 3 Tbsp milk - for brushing
- In a stand mixer bowl, place the flour, salt, sugar and cubed butter and mix on medium speed for about 3-4 minutes. You will notice that the mix now resembles coarse sand.
- Start adding cold water from your ¼ cup, one tablespoon after the other. Add a tablespoon and keep mixing to see how the consistency changes. You want to reach the point where the mix becomes a dough that is disconnecting from the bowl sides and is not watery or dry or sticky (kind of like playdough).
- Remove the dough from the bowl and knead a bit to create a ball.
- Divide into 2 parts and place them in a bag (or plastic wrap) in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes.
- Place the cherries with sugar in a medium saucepan/pot along with the vanilla/almond extract over medium heat and stir every 2 minutes to avoid burning.
- After about 10 minutes you will notice that the cherry mix is liquid and the sugar has dissolved.
- Take the ¼ cup water and add the 2 Tbsp cornstarch into it and quickly stir until it dissolves.
- Slowly pour the mix into the cherries while stirring. The cherry mix will solidify and become jam-like in consistency. that's when you remove the cherries from the heat.
- Let the cherries cool to room temperature (I usually pour the mix onto a large flat plate which helps it cool faster).
- Preheat oven to 200C/ 400F
- Butter and flour the pie dish.
- Take out the dough from the fridge and sprinkle flour on your surface.
- Place the first dough ball on the floured surface and sprinkle some flour on top and start rolling using a rolling pin until the rolled circle size exceeds the pie dish size by about 2-3 inches in diameter (about 12 inches total).
- Transfer the rolled dough onto the pie dish and gently press on middle and sides to make sure it is covering everything. You will have overhangs on the sides which is fine.
- Place the cherry filling on the crust in the pie dish.
- Roll out the second half of the dough the same way. Create opening or using a small cookie cutter create shapes on the top part of the crust.
- Transfer top crust onto the cherry filling.
- Using very sharp knife or kitchen scissors, trim the overhangs, leaving enough on the edges to tighten the 2 crusts together to avoid the filling from spilling during baking.
- Place tiny pieces of butter randomly on the pie and brush with milk.
- Bake on the lower third of the oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes lower oven temperature to 180C/ 375F and bake for additional 30-35 minutes or until filling is bubbling and crusts look golden brown.
- Let cool down completely before eating.
.
