Naturally sweet cherry filling with a hint of lemon tucked into a flaky, buttery pie crust.
I’ve been on a bit of a pie kick lately with that delicious blueberry pie and now this cherry pie! Between these two recipes I’ve made 6 fruit pies in the last 5 weeks! It’s amazing my pants still button. But hey, it’s summer…you’ve got to make fruit pies! Either, or both, of these pies would be perfect for the 4th of July… especially with a scoop of vanilla ice cream! Delish!
My biggest pet peeves about fruit pies are that they tend to be runny and artificially sweet. So I’ve been on a bit of a mission to find and tweak pie recipes to get a more naturally sweet fruit filling that also don’t ooze fruit juice all over your plate. Fruit has it’s own sugar, so you shouldn’t have to add a whole lot … just enough to draw out the natural sweetness. Read my blueberry pie post to get more tips on making the perfect fruit pie.
This pie needs a little less than 2 lbs of cherries. I’d suggest buying 2 lbs because you usually end up with a handful of bad ones. I weigh mine at the store before leaving since the bags of cherries are not usually pre-weighed out. I used the normal sweet red cherries. You can also use rainier cherries (those yellow/orange ones) … I usually don’t because they are sort of expensive for fruit that’s going in a pie. Sour cherries would work too, but you’ll need to adjust the granulated sugar amount to counter out the sourness.
Cherry pie is slightly more involved than other fruit pies because it involves pitting the cherries. I highly recommend buying a cherry pitter. They’re around $10 and will save you so much time. I picked mine up at Whole Foods … it’s the Mrs. Anderson brand. It sort of looks like a scary dentist tool to me, but it makes the job a whole lot faster. Just pop the pit out and then slice the cherry in half.
Make sure to let the pie cool for at least 4 hours before slicing into it, so the filling has time to set. Your patience will be rewarded with a beautifully stable filling which you can see in the photo below.
I hope you have fruit pie involved in your 4th of July plans!
- 4½ cups halved and pitted fresh sweet cherries*
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract (optional)
- 2½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoon granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 16 Tablespoons salted butter, cold and cubed
- 6 Tablespoons cold water
- Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with 1 Tablespoon milk
- Coarse Sugar (optional)
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Mix all the filling ingredients together.
- Refrigerate while you make the crust.
- Mix flour, sugar, and salt together with a spatula.
- Using a pastry cutter or 2 knives, cut the cold butter into the flour until it resembles coarse meal. The butter chunks should be as small or smaller than green peas.
- Mix in the cold water and stir with a fork until the mixture is raggedy.
- Transfer dough to a floured work surface and gently work the dough together with your hands. Split the dough into two equal pieces. Put one piece in the fridge while you work with the other.
- Flatten the dough into a disc and roll the dough out with a floured rolling pin into a 12-inch circle. As you are rolling the dough, turn the dough circle a couple times to make sure it is not sticking to the counter and add more flour to your work surface as needed.
- Transfer the 12-inch dough circle to a 9-inch pie dish. To transfer the dough without tearing it, loosely wrap the pie dough around your rolling pin and then unroll it over your pie dish.
- Trim the edges so there is only about ½ inch of overhang.
- Pour the filling into the crust. Try to get the flour as evenly distributed as possible.
- Roll out the refrigerated second piece of pie crust into a 12 inch circle.
- Cut the circle into ½ inch wide strips. You don't want the strips to thick or it'll be difficult to get your fork through the top crust without smushing the filling.
- Picking up every other strip of pie crust arrange the strips vertically.
- For the first horizontal strip, pick up every other vertical strip and set them to the side. Lay down the first horizontal strip. Replace the vertical strips.
- For the following horizontal strips, fold every other vertical strip (alternating from the ones you picked up last time) over the last horizontal strip. Place the next horizontal strip down and then replace the folded vertical strips back over.
- Once you are done with the basket weave, trim the strips of dough so they are even with the bottom pie crust.
- Crimp the edges by first folding the overhang of the bottom crust over the edges of the top crust, and then pinching the edges between your thumb and first finger.
- Liberally brush the lattice and pie crust edges with egg wash. You don't need all the egg wash but use more than you probably think you should. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
- Place the pie on a baking sheet.
- Bake for 25 minutes and then with the pie still in the oven drop the temperature on the oven to 375°F and bake for another 30-35 minutes. If the lattice top starts browning too quickly, cover the pie with aluminum foil. I needed to cover just the edges of mine after about 50 minutes in the oven.
- Cool on a wire rack for 4-6 hours.
Great recipe and non runny!