I order a HUGE can of frozen pitted sour cherries each summer from a local farm stand.
Then I re-freeze the cherries in quart sized freezer bags. It takes about two bags to make a good pie, but I also use DEEP pie pans so if yours are narrower, then you can scale back the recipe to suit. I can never, ever, ever get enough fruit in my pies, so I'm okay with a little country spillover!
Cherry Pie Filling
6 cups pitted sour cherries
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup flour
3 tablespoons butter
Warm cherries in large kettle on stovetop over medium heat. Mix sugar and flour together. Add to warm, juicy cherries. Toss in butter. Heat on medium low, stirring now and again, until mixture thickens into pie filling consistency.
Why? you wonder.
Why am I doing this when I could simply toss the cherries into the crust, add the sugar and flour, dot with butter and be done with it?
ANSWER: soggy pie. Soggy pie means soggy pie crust. Yuck. Try it this way. Really. Do I ever (mostly?) lead you astray?
I cook berry pie filling first always. Strawberry Rhubarb, blueberry, cherry.... The end result is awesome and that's what counts, right?
So now roll out your first crust and gently re-roll it up, onto the rolling pin and transfer it to the pie pan. If it breaks a little, mend it. It will be fine, I promise.
Now pile in the pie filling. Feel free to taste some. Make sure it's good!!!! ;)
Crimp edges if using dutch crumb topping. (recipe HERE , scroll down to bottom of page for the Dutch Crumb topping)
If you're going to use a regular crust topping (I like that better with cherry pie) then cover the cherry mix with the top crust, tuck edges up and under the bottom crust, then crimp them together by pinching little "V's" all around the outside edge. Then cover those edges with strips of foil because they cook faster than everything else and no one wants burned pie crust, right?
And here it is:
Bake at 425 degrees for about 25-35 minutes, depending on your oven.
Oh, my.... Ruthy, I LOVE cerry pie, yet that's one I've never made. And oh how I miss rhubarb pie. A staple growing up in Michigan. Occasionally I can find it in the grocery store, but it's expensive. Not the same as picking it from the backyard. Ruthy, if you ever make it to Texas, you'll have to bring me a homemade rhubarb pie.
ReplyDeleteAs for this cherry pie recipe, it's a keeper. I just have to figure out where to get the cherries. Do you suppose any of the places up north do mail orders?
Drooling all over my keyboard isn't pretty -- especially at work. I LOVE a good cherry pie which means it has to be homemade and I've never made one before. I tried buying different brands at the grocery store a time or two but they all taste like some kind of bland jam that might be cherry but could as easily be strawberry or raspberry. Yuck. So I'm gonna hunt me down some cherries and try this recipe out. Mmmmmmm....with vanilla ice cream. Yum.
ReplyDeleteHey, I found this address on the web...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kingorchards.com/store.htm
Mindy, they recommend ordering them in the winter to get to Southern states semi-frozen. And then they say to just lay them on cookie sheets, refreeze, then pour frozen ones back into freezer bags.
Sooooo good!
MORE PIE! YES!
ReplyDeleteThis cafe rocks. Seriously.
Mindy! I grew up in Michigan, too! Nothing beats Michigan fruit, guys. Cherries, blueberries, apples...oh, and peaches to die for. Whenever we make a trip back there in the summer, I stock the car with whatever is in season - then freeze or can it even before I do the laundry when we get home.
We filled the back of our van with 6 bushels of apples on one trip.
And Mindy, when we moved away from Texas (I can't believe it was almost 19 years ago!), we moved to northern Indiana. I was seven months pregnant, and I dragged my poor mom and the older two children across the border to Michigan to buy fruit at least once a week. Peaches. I craved them.
Ruthy - thanks for the web address! I've been able to buy Washington fruit here in western South Dakota, but no cherries.
Jan, this is getting too weird. Where in Michigan? Where in South Dakota? I lived in SD back in the late 80's.
DeleteI so remember the cherries and blueberries in MI. Grandpa used to park the car along side the road "up north" and Grandma gave us all an empty coffee can. Then we'd go into the woods and pick blueberries. We were rewarded for our efforts with blueberry pie and blueberry jam. Yum, yum!
Oh, and blueberry buckle! Love it!
DeleteMindy, this IS weird. Kalamazoo, MI and Rapid City, SD. We lived in Abilene, TX from '90 to '93.
If the cities match with yours, I'm going to start humming the Twilight Zone theme song.
You haven't lived in KS, have you?
Near Lansing, MI and Rapid City, SD, but no Kansas. I loved Rapid City. Loved the Black Hills.
DeleteOkay Mindy, I'm humming (doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo)
DeleteWe lived in Lansing for six months...
And yes, we LOVE the Black Hills. Every decent weekend we're up there hiking. Who needs to clean the house?
Ruthy, that photo looks so perfect I would have sworn it was a frozen pie or else something you just got off the internet for the blog post!! Gorgeous! And sounds so yummy. I've never made a homemade cherry pie. But I do love them even better than apple pies. I'll have to try it!
ReplyDeleteMindy and Jan, what a hoot this is! I swear when God means for folks to fine one another, they do. Some way, shape or form, it happens!
ReplyDeleteMichigan is like upstate New York. My books could easily be set there. When I travel there, it's like being home. Beautiful farmland, hedgerows, fields, ponds, lakes, trees. Lots of great fruit and veggies. We have the gift of those Great Lakes which really has a marvelous effect on our growing season.
Missy, thank you! That was a file photo from a couple of years back, but sour cherry pie is one of Lacey's favorites, so I make them a few times a year. And strawberry rhubarb for her and one of Luke's buddies. I send his to Albany with Lukie when he comes home to visit.
I've always loved baking. Truly love it. It feels right to me, so I guess it's inborn. And I love doing lattice tops. Or cut-out tops with those cute cookie cutters? You can get them shaped like apples, fall leaves, etc. And you just pretend the pie crust is a cookie and you cut out shapes and decorate the top of the pie.
That creates a stir and it's so stinkin' easy!
those individual pies sound good for me - otherwise the whole thing would be gone! might have to try something like this for work sometime though looks messy...and no fresh cherries here either except for a month or so and they have pits (rocks!) in them! I read a love inspired last year or the year before that was set around cherries and growing them..sheesh can't remember the author darn it and I remember wanting to get the sequels when they came out 'cause seems like there's a mixed up brother and a friend I wanted to read about...anyways the heroine cooked all kinds of stuff with cherries - seems like she even cooked meat with cherries - but the breakfasts were awesome!
ReplyDeleteSusanna