A Variation on my Award Winning Cherry Pie

This year's bumper crop of cherries

There was a cherry tree in my back yard when I first moved in, and over the years it has matured into a large and beautiful tree that shades the yard and produces a bounty of cherries in June.  Time to make cherry pie. 

As a young girl, my mother decided I should be a home economist and in order to prepare me, entered me in baking competitions.  While other kids would practice the piano or go to dance lessons, or hang out and play, I would come home after school and practice baking.  I would bake the same recipe with a slight variation,  cut out a wedge, examine the consistency,  taste and then wrap up and put the experiment in the freezer and start all over again.  Cherry Pie was one of my Red Ribbon winners, and so, after not having made the recipe for years, I took down my old recipe book from the top shelf and baked it once more.


The recipe from my youth used frozen cherries, so working with fresh cherries required some adjustment, and then it was sweeter than I would bake it now, so I modified the recipe once again, and then I substituted Amaretto for the almond extract.  I am not sure it would win the red ribbon, however it does feel right now.

My less than perfect cherry pie.  I am definitely out of practice. 

Preheat oven to 375F

Pastry

• 2  1/2 cups of sifted pastry flour
• 1/2 cup of ground almonds
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1/2teaspoon of salt
• 3/4 cup of cold butter
• 5 to 6 tablespoons of cream
• 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract

Mix dry ingredients, and cut in butter.  Mix cream and almond extract. Gradually stir in cream mixture until mixture holds together.  Do not overwork.  Split in half and form into two flat balls.  Wrap in plastic and refrigerate while preparing filling. 

Cherry Filling

• 5 cups of pitted Bing cherries
• 1/4 cup of Amaretto
• juice of one lemon
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of cornstarch

Add Amaretto and lemon juice to cherries and let rest for half an hour.  Mix sugar and corn starch together.  Add a bit of water to make paste.  Drain liquid from cherries, and mix juice with corn starch mixture.  Heat over hot stove until clear.  Add cherries and set aside.

Roll half of the pastry and place in 8" pie plate.  Add cherry mixture.  Roll other half of pastry and cut into strips.  Weave lattice on top of pie.  Cover edges of pastry with foil, and bake for 40 minutes.