There is nothing better than a home-made cherry pie. People often think of pies as being labor intensive, but realistically, pies are really easy to make. The secret? Buy the crust! 🙂
Everybody thinks you need pie cherries to make a pie, but they are missing out on really good pie by sticking with pie cherries. Royal Ann cherries make fabulous pie and sweet cherries are also fantastic! You just need to reduce the sugar. The most time intensive part is pitting the cherries – see here for our cherry pitter suggestions and reviews.
Fresh Cherry Pie Recipe
Nothing beats a fresh cherry pie, especially when you've picked the cherries yourself. This easy to make pie uses sweet cherries, instead of the traditional sour, but you can use either.
1/2cupsugarincrease to 1 1/3 c if you are using fresh pie cherries (these are the tart ones)
1/4 cupall purpose flour
3cupsfresh sweet cherries(if using pie cherries, increase to 4 cups)
1/4teaspoonalmond extract
1/4teaspoonvanilla extract
2tablespoonsbutter
1pie shellPillsbury Pie crust(2 crusts per box) room temperature
Instructions
Heat oven to 425 degrees. Remove pie crust from plastic and gently roll out into pie crust pan. Form to the sides of the pan and try to make it even throughout the pan. Dab your fingers in water to help prevent it from drying out and tearing.
Pit your cherries and place in a bowl
Mix sugar and flour together. Add cherries and stir.
Pour mixture into pie pan. Sprinkle the almond and vanilla over the top. Cut the butter up into chunks and dot over the top.
Carefully cover the mixture with the second pie crust, seal and flute (use a fork to squash down edges). Cut several slits in the top of the crust to allow steam to escape.
Take strips of aluminium foil about 2 – 3 inches wide and cover the edges to keep them from burning. Remove foil during the last 15 minutes of baking
Bake until the crust is golden brown and the juice is bubbling out of the slits, about 35 – 45 minutes.
Notes
You can increase or decrease the sugar to your liking. You can go as much as 1 1/3 cups of sugar or decrease if you would like. Just try the mixture and add as you wish. You can also substitute a sweetener like Truvia(TM), Stevia, or Splenda(TM). I would go about half because they are much sweeter than sugar. So, start with half and add gradually until you get a flavor you like.