How I Made a Cherry Pie

I made it with love, of course!

How purty is that?  Does it make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

I will let you in on a little secret.  It tastes really yummy, too!  I like to use a combo of both dark, sweet cherries and tart cherries for what I think is the best flavor punch. I can normally find dark sweet cherries in the freezer section, but it can be hard to find tart canned cherries around here.  Cherry pie filling is easy to find, but tart canned tart cherries can be hard to find.

So what's a girl to do?  This!

I take frozen cherries and let them thaw in a strainer over a container until they yield their juice.  This can take a while, so be patient.  But this is what the cherries will look like...

...and this is their juice.

I made a double recipe for these pics since I was making a total of two pies, but here are the amounts for a single pie.  Also, if you can find tart canned cherries, then combine the juices from both cherries in the recipe steps below, doubling the sugar and cornstarch amounts.

3/4 cup of sugar
2 T. cornstarch
Dash of salt
3/4 cup of cherry juice (add water, if needed to bring to 3/4 cup)
Splash of vanilla
Generous splash of almond (cause cherries and almonds will live happily ever after!)
1 T. butter
One 1-lb package frozen cherries
One can cherry pie filling

Mix the sugar, cornstarch and salt in a heavy bottom sauce pan.

Mix in the cherry juice and place over medium high heat.  Cook and stir until thick and boiling, and then boil for 2 minutes to fully cook the cornstarch.

Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, almond and butter.  Then stir in the thawed cherries until fully coated with the glaze.

Now I mixed in the can of cherry pie filling, which gives us a balance of dark and sweet with light and tart.

Kinda pretty, right?

Pour this into your prepared bottom crust (your favorite recipe or even store bought.)  PS - Aldi has a good pie crust.

Then add your top crust - embellished to show your love if you like!

Or your thanks...

I love my little 1" letter shaped cookie cutters for just this sort of thing!  They make forming the letters so easy...

...and then you can brush the crust with cream or beaten egg and add the cut out letters, if you like.  (I like.)

I like to finish with a sprinkle of sparkling sugar before baking the pie at 425 degrees for 20 minutes and then another 30 - 45 minutes @ 375, adding a crust shield for the last 20 minutes or so.

Finally if you want pieces of pie that cut nice, wait at least 6 - 8 hours before cutting.  If you like a warm piece of pie with ice cream on top (and who doesn't???!!!), I suggest a quick zap in the micro of individual pieces so you get a pretty cut plus the wonderful mouth feel of warm pie with freezing ice cream.

I make no guarantees, however, about crust not breaking.

And with that I will close with a...

...for reading!  Happy Cheery Cherry Baking!