Cherry Pie

Summer is officially here...and I couldn't notice it more than when I'm walking through the local farmer's markets downtown. It started off slow, but each week now there are more and more veggies, fruits, flowers, jams, pastries...I look forward to my stroll through the market every week. If you're in downtown Chicago...or in a nearby neighborhood...check out this site to find the days/times of your local market. You won't regret it!


Early on, I noticed stands full of sweet cherries...starting off small and then growing bigger and bigger. I know people often think of cherry pie as a little tart, and probably because most traditional cherry pies use sour cherries. A little tart is good...but I love my cherry pies sweet sweet sweet. So here's my recipe for a pretty simple but oh-so-tasty homemade cherry pie.


Ingredients
For the crust:
(see my recipe for homemade Cinnamon Apple Pie for directions on how to make an easy, flaky homemade crust)


For the filling:
2-3 pints of fresh sweet cherries (depending on how big your cherries are)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp. almond extract (you can use vanilla, but I think the flavors of cherries and almond go hand-in-hand)
3 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. butter
1 egg white


Directions
1. Make the crust (see the link above).
2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
3. While the oven heats up, you'll want to pit your cherries. This is perhaps the most labor-intensive part of a truly homemade cherry pie, but it's totally worth it. Canned cherries really just don't measure up. So, unless you happen to have a cherry pitter on hand (which, in that case, you probably have your own recipe for cherry pie), here is an easy way to pit cherries by hand: set a cherry down on a cutting board and, with a large knife, gently push down on the cherry. The flesh will break open, and you can easily split the cherry the rest of the way in half and pull out the pit. 
*Note: wear an apron and make sure nothing is too close to the cutting board. You're going to get some cherry juice out of these suckers and you'll have yourself a nice little mess to clean up. But I promise, it's worth it!

 

4. Once the cherries are pitted, make sure each is also halved. Place them in a medium mixing bowl.

 

5. Zest the lemon and add zest to the cherry bowl. Squeeze the juice of the lemon into the bowl.
6. Add the almond extract, sugar, salt and cornstarch, and combine with a large spoon or spatula.

7. Grease the pie dish and roll out the first half of your dough to form the bottom crust. Poke holes with a fork to allow steam to escape during baking.
8. Place the filling into the pie dish and spread until evenly dispersed. Cut the butter into small cubes and place sporadically over filling.

9. Lattice the top of the pie with the remaining half of dough. Crimp the edges decoratively with a fork by pressing the tines of the fork into the outer rim of crust.

10. Separate the egg white into a small bowl and add a little water. Mix with a fork and spread over the top of the pie crust with a pastry brush. This ensures the pie will have a golden brown finish.
11. Cover the edges with foil and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.
12. Lower the heat to 375 degrees and bake for another hour until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling at the edges. Remove the foil from the edges of pie when there are about 20 minutes left of bake time.