Homemade Tart Cherry Pie

Homemade Tart Cherry Pie

This year my cherry tree bore much fruit .. I started to wonder what to do with so many cherries.. The obvious answer to us is to make a pie!

Although pies are usually a summer delicacy, they are also great in the fall and winter! Imagine cuddling up in the kitchen around a fresh cherry pie, watching the steam rise from its crust. The tart cherries and ice cream marry together so well, it’s hard to say no. Gather ‘round and dig in!

Home Made Tart Cherry Pie
(serves about 6)

Ingredients

Crust

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) cold, unsalted butter, cubed
  
• 1/2 cup ice water
  
• 3 teaspoons sugar
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling

• 6 cups pitted fresh cherries or
  frozen tart cherries (Michigan if possible)
  
• 2/3 cup sugar
  
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  
• 1 egg
  
• 1 tablespoon milk
  
• 3 drops vanilla extract

Directions

1. Combine flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor and briefly stir.
2. Chop you butter into manageable cubes and add them to the food processor. Pulse the ingredients until dough begins to form.
3. Slowly add in ice water in increments of 1 tablespoon at a time until your ingredients are coarse and crumbly.
4. Finish the piecrust by kneading it in your hands. Form it into a flat disc, warp in plastic wrap, and let refrigerate for two hours.
5. Preheat oven to 375° F when you are ready to bake your pie.
6. Prepare your filling by combining cherries and 1/2 cup of sugar in a bowl as the cherries thaw. Remove the cherries from the accumulating liquid.
7. Put thawed cherries, your remaining sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch, vanilla, and your defrosted cherry juice in a saucepan. Stir your ingredients together so that the cherries are sitting in unified syrupy liquid.
8. Cook your cherries in this liquid on medium heat for 2 minutes or until it begins to boil. Let cool.
9. Roll your dough flat on a lightly floured surface. Form your cold piecrust into two discs, one to fit the bottom and sides of your pie pan, the other to form the top crust of your pie or Roll out remaining pastry; make a lattice crust. Trim, seal and flute edges.
10. Press your bottom crust into your pie dish so that it fills the bottom and sides of the dish.
11. Fill your crust with cherry pie filling.
12. In a separate bowl beat your egg with milk.
13. Brush the visible edges of your piecrust with your egg/milk mixture.
14. Cut three 2-inch slits along your top crust to allow heat to escape, while being careful not to cut them all the way to the edge of the crust.
15. Add your top crust on top of you cherry filling.
    Seal your two crusts by pressing the points at which they intersect with a fork and smoothing them into a cohesive edge.
16. Brush the top of your crust with egg/milk mixture. Sprinkle with sugar if desired.
17. Bake for 50 minutes or until the crust turns golden brown.
    Let cool before serving.

Picking Cherries

Recipe adapted from 12 tomatoes