Ever since I’ve started making pies, cherry pie has been my Everest. My husband loves cherry pie, and after visiting Door County Wisconsin with him, I understand why! Chasing the perfect pie has been my quest and, according to him, I’ve achieved it! Be sure to get tart/sour cherries for this pie, or you’ll lose that delightful cherry flavor and just end up with pure sugar.
This recipe is perfect for making ahead and freezing or using fresh.
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“Old Fashioned” Cherry PIe
An amazing cherry pie with a couple special ingredients that make for a unique twist on a delicious classic.
3½cupstart/sour pitted cherriesfresh, frozen, or canned*
¾cupgranulated sugar
2Tbspcorn starch
1½Tbsplemon juice
½tspvanilla extract
5dashesangostura bittersoptional
1pinchsalt
Instructions
Add cherries to the saucepan and soften over medium heat, about 5 minutes for fresh or frozen cherries, for canned cherries just heat through.
In a small bowl, whisk together sugar, salt, and corn starch. Add to the saucepan and allow to cook down over medium heat with the fruit for about 5 minutes. You should see the sauce thickening due to the corn starch.
Add the lemon juice, vanilla, and bitters, and stir gently into the mixture to prevent mashing the cherries. Allow to heat through and set aside to cool while you prepare the dough.
Place pie filling in prepared dough and bake according to dough recipe.
Notes
If using canned cherries, include all juice into the saucepan.
I highly recommend my Buttermilk Pie Crust or Butter Pie Crust for this recipe, however any pie crust recipe that includes the top and bottom crust will work fine.
Depending on your fruit, fresh, frozen, etc, they may release a lot of water. If by the end of cooking the filling you still have a lot of liquid, I recommend using a slotted spoon to separate out some of the liquid as you add the fruit to the pie crust, and possibly only add about half of the liquid to the pie crust. (You don’t want it overly soggy!)
