Tomato Salad
Ali Slagle
43 ratings with an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars
43
10 minutes
Cherry Pie
Updated Oct. 12, 2023
- Total Time
- About 2 hours, plus at least 3 hours’ chilling and cooling
- Prep Time
- 1 hour, plus at least 3 hours’ chilling and cooling
- Cook Time
- 50 minutes to 1 hour
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:8 servings
- 2½cups/320 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
- ½teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1cup/226 grams cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
- 3 to 7tablespoons ice water, plus more as needed
- ½ to 1cup/100 to 200 grams granulated sugar
- 2 to 3tablespoons instant tapioca
- ¼teaspoon ground cinnamon or cardamom
- 2pounds sour or sweet cherries (about 6 cups), pitted (or 20 ounces pitted frozen cherries)
- 1lemon (optional)
- 3tablespoons heavy cream
- Demerara sugar, for sprinkling
For the Pie Dough
For the Filling
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)
463 calories; 25 grams fat; 16 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 56 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 22 grams sugars; 5 grams protein; 152 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Powered byPreparation
- Step 1
Make the crust: In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a food processor, whisk or pulse together the flour and salt. Add the butter.
- Step 2
If using a bowl, toss with your hands until the butter pieces are well coated with flour. Cut the butter into the flour by pressing the pieces between your fingertips, flattening the cubes into big flakes and continuing to toss them in the flour to recoat the flakes. If using a food processor, pulse butter into the flour until the pieces are about the size of lima beans.
- Step 3
Mix or pulse in 3 tablespoons ice water, tossing it with the flour in the bowl if working by hand. Continue to add ice water, 1 to 2 tablespoons at a time, pulsing briefly or tossing well, until the dough begins to come together. Press the dough together if working by hand.
- Step 4
Form the dough into two disks about 1-inch thick. Wrap each tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days before using. (It can also be frozen for up to 3 months, then thawed overnight in the refrigerator.)
- Step 5
Heat oven to 425 degrees. Place a baking sheet on the bottom rack.
- Step 6
Make the filling: In a bowl of a food processor (you don’t have to wash it out if you used it for the dough), combine sugar (use ½ cup for sweet cherries and up to 1 cup for sour cherries), tapioca (use more for a thicker, solid filling, and less for looser, juicier filling), and cinnamon or cardamom. Run the motor until tapioca is finely ground.
- Step 7
Place cherries in a large bowl, and add sugar and tapioca mixture. Toss gently to combine. If using sweet cherries, zest the lemon into the bowl, then squeeze in the juice and toss well. (Sour cherries don’t need the extra acidity, so skip this if using.)
- Step 8
Using a rolling pin, roll out one disk of the dough on a lightly floured surface and into a 12-inch round, about ⅜-inch thick. Fit the dough into a 9-inch pie plate, preferably metal for the crunchiest crust. Roll remaining dough for the top crust into an 11-inch round.
- Step 9
Pour the cherry mixture into the crust and top with the remaining round of dough. Press the edges together, trim the excess dough, and crimp the edges with your fingers or press down with the tines of a fork. Cut a few steam vents in the center of the pie.
- Step 10
Brush the top crust with cream and sprinkle generously with Demerara sugar. Carefully place pie on the hot baking sheet in the oven. Bake until the crust is dark golden brown and the filling bubbles up, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Transfer pie to a wire rack to cool for at least 2 hours, allowing the filling to set before serving.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
Sarah
An easy way to pit cherries if you don't have a pitter is to place one right at the mouth of an empty wine/beer/soda bottle then take a metal straw or chopstick and push down through the center of the cherry. The pit will fall into the bottle and you have a pitted cherry!
Mike in CT
Pitted means no pits. 1/8 tsp almond extract makes the cherries pop.
Hillaryn
Buy pitted frozen cherries. They work just fine.
Barb
I, too, use a little almond extract with cherry and blueberry pies. I would highly recommend adding some to your next cherry pie. For those bemoaning the fact that you can't find pie cherries anymore, if you've got any land whatsoever, plant a tree; a sour cherry tree is very small: eight to ten feet or so. You only need one; they are self-fertile. They are less susceptible to insect or disease issues than sweet cherries and they have beautiful spring blossoms and scent.
John Golden
Use tapioca flour for for thickening
Jen
For minimum damage to the cherry, I use a large paperclip. Just press in at the stem end and give a small twist and pull up - really easy. Great for making good looking cocktail cherries
Saralyn Fosnight
I would drop the cinnamon and use almond extract instead. That's the way my mother and I always made cherry pie. We also used sour cherries. They are bright red and much more flavorful than sweet ones. Tapioca is what my grandmother, mother, and i use to thicken fruit pie fillings. It's much better than cornstarch. But it must be instant tapioca, with small granules, not the large ones. The point is thickening and disappearing, not being an observable item. Use a chopstick to pit the cherries.
Jess Bee
I would love to use sour cherries, but can almost never find them where I now live in MA. Oh for the days of buying every quart of sour cherries I could find at greenmarkets all over NYC and freezing them for future pies! So I'll try Melissa's advice to use regular cherries with citrus zest and juice. For faster, pitting, look up "six cherry pitter" online and you'll see options. When I use mine, I count the pits in the reservoir as I go, so there are no surprises.
Vicki
To pit the smaller, tart cherries, I use a bobby pin. Just insert the u-shaped end into the stem area of the cherry, grab the pit and pop it right out. Saves more of the cherry than using a pitter.
natster3413
We planted a tart cherry tree 20 years ago; it didn't start bearing intil about 10 years in. This year it went berserk! And the cherries are so good! I concur about using almond extract- it makes the cherry flavor "cherrier".
Jen
I can't imagine something more unpleasant that sitting around a table with everyone spitting out cherry pits with the occasional choking. It's giving Witches of Eastwick
Laure
For the person who lives in MA. Go to Wilson's Farmers Market in Lexington. They'll even put your name on a list and call you when the sour cherries come in! Now that's customer service!
Amy
A clean U-shaped bobby pin also works in similar fashion. :-)
Melanie
Concerning questions about frozen cherries, this info from my Michigan brother, "For my pies, I use about 2/3rds cup of sugar, 1 & 2/3 T of cornstarch, squirt of lemon and five dabs of butter. But I start with a short 5 cups of frozen pitted sour cherries; having to work from canned cherries is a burden i don't have to bear." You don't need to pre-cook the filling before baking, just stir the filling ingredients into the cherries, pour into the bottom crust and dab with butter.
William
You can substitute corn starch for the instant tapioca. I found it works fine. Also, instead of heavy cream, I did a wash of 1 tbsp milk / 1 egg yolk. That worked nicely.
Casey
Really disappointed—I followed the recipe exactly and even used three tablespoons of tapioca that I dutifully did my best to grind into a fine powder using my mini food processor, but my pie filling still turned out like water. I wish I used corn starch instead now.
Sonia
Made this with 1/3 c sugar and 5 T cornstarch, 2 T lemon juice and zest of lemon. Used crumble for topping and cinnamon in both crumble and filling. My cherries were sweet and I had no tapioca. Delicious
Sonia
Also I used potato starch which seems to disappear into the more than cornstarch 5 T
kkc
Thank you to posters on the reduction of sugar and the addition of almond extract. Excellent. I used tapioca flour instead and didn't add enough, but it was still delicious. I also added a layer of almond paste to the bottom which boosted the almond flavor. However, it was too thick, my crust too soft, so tore the bottom crust. Still tasted great!
vicki
The very best sour cherry pie recipe is from Art of the Pie by Kate McDermott. No comparisons!
Ali R.
I intended to make this pie exactly as written with frozen sweet cherries. However, I ran out of time and so, in a pinch, I used a Whole Foods, frozen pie crust (surprisingly good) and added a crumb topping. Used cardamom as the spice. I baked as directed in the recipe. My family loved it, even as a semi-homemade riff in the original. Will definitely make again.
Linda
Just made this recipe last night. I’m not big into desserts and need to keep my blood sugar down. Cherry pie is one of my favorites. I used frozen cherries, a bit sour. Used monk fruit granulated and lemon juice from 1 lemon. Bruised the top crust with a little almond milk instead of cream, and sprinkled a pinch of the monk fruit on top. Served with sone La tide free sugar free vanilla ice cream (yes, there is such a thing). My husband said this is the best cherry pie he’s had. I agree.
Barbara
If I can’t find sour cherries in the summer, I order them in 32-oz jars from Lautenbach’s Orchard Country in Door County, WI. They’re lovely.
Joe
The season must be very short because I can never find fresh sour cherries (or frozen fort that matter), and pie with sweet cherries just tastes not right to me, so I end up using canned tart cherries (Oregon brand) - I leave out the juice and cooked the filling down a bit first…
Alan S
Plant sour cherry tree…Wait…Cooking time 10 years.
Pam W
Using the preferred metal pie pan the pie was done at 45mins. Out of season baking: Use cherries in the frozen state. Do not thaw.
Wrenn Nicodemo
How much almond extract should I use?
Sk8dva
Don’t thaw the cherries!!! I made this using a 2 pound bag of frozen cherries, mixed sweet and tart, because that’s what I had. I don’t know why the recipe says to use less of the frozen cherries, I used a full 2 pounds. I used 3/4 cup of sugar, and I had no tapioca so I used 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. It could’ve used 1-1/2 tablespoons of cornstarch. So delicious! Just the right amount of sweetness. I did add the lemon zest and the juice of half a lemon. Next time I will leave out the zest.
Julia
This was so good! It’s cherry season, so I happily pitted 2lbs of them to make this pie. I chose cardamom over cinnamon, and so glad I did. It goes beautifully with the sweet cherries and lemon. I also opted for a lattice top crust. Amazing!
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