Cherry Pie

I made a pie! This was very exciting, being that it was my first pie, with non-store-bought crust. I have never been a fan of anything pie except for apple pie, but I let my husband pick a recipe and he picked cherry pie. I'm glad he did, because otherwise I probably never would have made this groovy pie.

The recipe calls for cherries either canned, fresh, or frozen. I went for frozen black cherries since those were the only cherries left in Trader Joe's the day I went. The filling was crazy easy. Just get a big bowl, and mix 5 cups of cherries (that's almost 2 frozen bags) with sugar (3/4 cup) and cornstarch (4 tbsp) and then let it sit for 10-15 min. This is when you can bake your crust, which conveniently takes 15 minutes as well. After 15 min, add 1 tbsp lemon juice and 1/4 tsp vanilla extract. Done with filling!

Okay, so crust is really hard to make. I did everything the recipe calls for, but when I got to the rolling out part, the dough was like a red-headed stepchild. It rolled out nicely when I started, but when I started to roll it a bit more, it started breaking. I added sprinkles of flour to get it to get the frack off my rolling pin, and water to mend the breaks, but it just kept breaking again. Two things I will do differently next time: 1) Chill it for longer. The recipe says to chill it for a minimum of 30 minutes, but I think I am going to do it overnight or something next time. 2) More water. The recipe calls for water when you are mixing the dough, but the author also says to chill all the ingredients, including the rolling pin, prior to mixing it together. Well, I did that, and my water froze. But I didn't notice that about a 1/3 cup of my water was frozen on the bottom of the cup until after I mixed it all together. Anyway, I wrestled to get the dough in the pan, and for the top, you can see all the patches I had to make to get it to cover the top. Regardless, it was a really yummy pie, and I would definitely make it again.

Here's the crust recipe:

2 1/2 unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup veg. shortening
1/3 cup + 1 tbsp ice water

Blend on low in food processor. Divide evenly and chill in plastic wrap for a long time. haha.