Fresh cherries - cherry pie recipes needed

This is the first year we have enough sour cherries to make desserts. We want to make a cherry pie but all recipes we have found all using canned cherries.

Do you have a good cherry pie recipe, using fresh sour cherries, that you could share, please? Thank you.

1 Like

To be honest, the canned cherry recipes should work just fine, but will be better from having used fresh cherries. You could also probably adapt a peach pie recipe subbing in an equivalent weight/volume of cherries. Theyā€™ll probably need more cornstarch or other thickener than peaches.

I donā€™t have a recipe, only guidelines. This is rough estimates based off of how I made pies when I baked at a restaurant, so my quantities may be off.
9" pie pan
1 1/2 qts pitted cherries
Sugar to taste (Iā€™d start with 1 c, but I tend to use way less sugar than most)
Probably about 1/2 c corn starch
Pinch salt
Mix together and put in pie crust, lay second crust on top, seal, and cut vents.
Bake at 375 for 45 min to an hour, will be bubbly when done.

Itā€™s been a long time since Iā€™ve made a cherry pie, but from what I remember spices arenā€™t really necessary. But cinnamon, vanilla, or lime zest can be good additions. I would even try a good dose of cayenne if anyone else in the house would eat it.

@marknmt any suggestions?

3 Likes

I find the sour cherries are so tasty that they can be a bit extreme in a full pie.
I mostly pre-cook them as filling and then use the ā€œgunkā€ to make handpies.
The cherries, as much sugar or sugar substitute as you want, are cooked to a light boil. I then typically mix a bit of Amaretto, vanilla and corn starch together and then stir it in for thickening.

I wing amounts and itā€™s fairly easy to adjust to your tastes.
I freeze it in 500 ml and 250 ml containers.
For the handpies, I use frozen puff pastry (PC brand) and divide each piece into 6 pieces and stick them together inpairs with the filling. Then cook at 425 for about 20 mins. Sometimes weā€™ll put a bit of glaze when they come out of the oven, but itā€™s not needed.

In our house, this is the main way weā€™ve used the cherries. Being able to make them at any time with almost no prep is great for any random cravings.
Itā€™s also ready to go as: cheesecake topping, Black Forest cake filling or regular pie filling.

( Iā€™ve gotten enough in the past few years that we have branched out to jam and preserved cherries)

4 Likes

Filling 4 cups pitted cherries instead

of 2.5 listed

2 Likes

From Epicurious. My fav. Recipe. Never add almond extract!

INGREDIENTS

  1. Crust:
  • 2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 5 tablespoons (or more) ice water
  1. Filling:
  • 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 5 cups whole pitted sour cherries or dark sweet cherries (about 2 pounds whole unpitted cherries)
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (if using sour cherries) or 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (if using dark sweet cherries)
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 1 tablespoon (about) milk
  • Vanilla ice cream

PREPARATION

  1. For crust:
  2. Whisk flour, sugar, and salt in large bowl to blend. Add butter and rub in with fingertips until small pea-size clumps form. Add 5 tablespoons ice water; mix lightly with fork until dough holds together when small pieces are pressed between fingertips, adding more water by teaspoonfuls if dough is dry. Gather dough together; divide into 2 pieces. Form each piece into ball, then flatten into disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes. Do ahead Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled. Let dough soften slightly before rolling out.
  3. For filling:
  4. Position rack in lower third of oven and preheat to 425Ā°F. Whisk 1 cup sugar, cornstarch, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Stir in cherries, lemon juice, and vanilla; set aside.
    1. Roll out 1 dough disk on floured surface to 12-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch glass pie dish. Trim dough overhang to 1/2 inch. Roll out second dough disk on floured surface to 12-inch round. Using large knife or pastry wheel with fluted edge, cut ten 3/4-inch-wide strips from dough round. Transfer filling to dough-lined dish, mounding slightly in center. Dot with butter. Arrange dough strips atop filling, forming lattice; trim dough strip overhang to 1/2 inch. Fold bottom crust up over ends of strips and crimp edges to seal. Brush lattice crust (not edges) with milk. Sprinkle lattice with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.
  5. Place pie on rimmed baking sheet and bake 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375Ā°F. Bake pie until filling is bubbling and crust is golden brown, covering edges with foil collar if browning too quickly, about 1 hour longer. Transfer pie to rack and cool completely. Cut into wedges and serve with vanilla ice cream.
5 Likes

Better to follow a recipe. Cherry pie is much better with a lattice top. You donā€™t want all of that crust interfering with the delicate, tart cherries. Just, sayinā€™. . .

1 Like

I respectfully disagree. I think itā€™s better to have a template that only worries about the non-negotiables and lets you make adjustments based on what you want. Recipes are guidelines, not gospel, and most are written with subpar grocery store fruit in mind. When I was the baker at the restaurant, one thing I always had to do to get the best quality is taste whatever fruit had come in that day and adjust the recipe accordingly. Sometimes some lemon juice or more sugar was needed to compensate for sub-optimal fruit quality. Other times, I would scale back on sugar or spices to get out of the way of exceptional quality fruit. Paticularly juicy fruits might call for more thickening agent.

I definitely like the look of a lattice top (and would probably use one if doing it for myself), but in my opinion and experience, a good crust will enhance and contrast with the cherries rather than detract from them.

All that being said, you gotta do what tastes good to you. For example, I wouldnā€™t add lemon juice or butter to tart cherries, and I think that almond extract can be a great addition reminiscent of noyeux. However, you clearly like adding the butter and lemon juice but donā€™t like the almond. And thatā€™s great! Otherwise weā€™d only have one kind of pie, and that would be sad.

I do like the time/temp profile on that recipe, though.

Thank you everyone for the recipes and helpful tips. We will make it this weekend and will report. While the weather has been rainy and cool, overall, lousy for yard work, it is perfect weather for baking.

The head chef will do the baking, I will supervise :joy:

2 Likes

My recipe is real real simple.
Dump pitted cherries into a loaf pan.
Grab a bag of sugar and dump some in
Make some homemade biscuit doughā€¦and roll thin and top the fruit and sugar
Place in oven at 325 degreesā€¦then go do other choresā€¦
and bake until the fire alarm goes off or it smells like itā€™s done!

4 Likes

My chef like your ā€œgood old boy bakingā€ method.

3 Likes

Good recipe MRSG

I got to get my old Fanny farmer book but Camera broke so do not want to write whole recipe.

not sure about Cherry, but
I will say I do like that Gramcraker cinnamon doe , but sure it could be done without buying
I actually obtained some for free , but never made it myself I think it would counter balance the acidic fruit.

Anyways I cannot find it out the book on a online site,
or take a picture but here. they say they use it (her Family)
(sites not all glichy like some cooking ones.)

(Note Fannie Famer Would have several recipes it is a Book from the 50ā€™s
got it at consignment store few bucks if that.

1 Like

Hey Blue berry I suppose you eat that pie so fast you just swallow the cherry pits
I like to savor things but Now that I think about it
I think it could work with some Ice cream along with pie.

You might be better to take a 2 by 4 , and smash those hard pits to mush
No need for Amaretto the bitter almond (Pit) Liquor you already have it.

The fire alarm thing I can relate, and food being charcoal
Maybe my body is telling me I eat to many toxins,
and need Charcoal to detoxify it does taste good to me.

Iā€™m only partly joking about the fire alarmā€¦as the smoke detector is mounted near 8 feet high between the stove and refrigeratorā€¦and it goes off several times a month, but the food is generally still edible. :grinning:

Those things are Noisy
I prefer these all over why not always grab one to use.

they should have a screen bowl under it why waste good popcorn.
your gonna need it.

2 Likes

You are probably already making the pie - it is so cold today in MA, right? We are also cooking inside. This morning I made jam with all the red currants from my one bush plus a few jostas and raspberries that were ripe. We ate it for lunch on buttered toast and I canned a little bit to give as gifts. This afternoon we are planning on making cha gio - vietnamese spring rolls with rice paper skins.

I generally like the sugar and thickener levels described in The Pie and Pastry Bible, by Rose Levy Berenbaum.

They have a chart in here which has the common pie fruits and how much of each plus how much sugar and cornstarch for one pie. For cherry:

3.5 cups (567g) fruit
175g sugar
2.5 tablespoons cornstarch (24g)
pinch of salt

I make my usual crust, which is all butter. I have not had good luck with lattice crust; my lattice pieces tend to get bogged down in the pie juice while it is still liquid and then the lattice pieces donā€™t cook properly. Maybe for a shortening crust it wouldnā€™t melt and slump so much before setting, as a butter crust does.

Most cherry pie recipes call for almond extract but I hate the taste of almond extract so I skip it. Good luck! I only had a handful of cherries from my bushes this year but I love sour cherry pie.

1 Like

On the way back from a supermarket. We donā€˜t do pie crust from scratch.:grin:

1 Like

Donā€™t forget cherry crisp! I plan to make one for the 4th!

2 Likes

@mrsg47 ,
Your cherry pitter is the best. It worked wonder with Carmine Jewel and Juliet.

By the time we finished pitting, it looked like CSI crime scene :joy:

6 Likes

What model pitter is that?

Is it this one?The Leifheit 37211 Cherry Pitter.