Well, now that the seemingly endless mother of all floral holidays is behind me this year it’s time to do some baking! The significant other is celebrating his birthday today and we both managed to swing the day off. At least he did . . . I’ll be doing plenty of forgotten jobs around the house . . . laundry, clean the kitchen and bath, stuff like that. But I’ll also make him his requested cherry pie instead of a birthday cake. I have made up the crust and it’s chilling in the fridge, also the filling is made and cooling. Just need to pre-heat the oven, roll out the crust and the pie is ready to go.

Easy transfer of dough to pie pan if you fold it into quarters

Have you ever bought tart pie cherries at the grocer? They are so expensive, nearly $4 a can and you need two cans for a decent sized pie. I found a generic brand on sale for $2 a can this week so I cheaped out – I’ll let you know what I think. I picked thru the cherries and didn’t find any pits, also tasted a couple – they taste just fine!

Below is the filling recipe – I used the vodka crust recipe from Blueberry Pie

Homemade Cherry Pie Filling
4 cups pitted tart cherries
3-4 tbsp. cornstarch
3/4 to 1 cup cherry juice
1/4 tsp. almond extract (optional)
3/4 cup sugar

Stir sugar & cornstarch together in a saucepan. Add small amounts of juice to make a paste. Whisk in remaining juice and cook, stirring until sauce thickens. Stir in drained cherries and almond extract. Cool.

I made a double batch of 8 cups (4 cans cherries) for 2 pies

Put cherry pie filling in pastry-lined pie pan. Put top crust on. Bake at 425° for 40-50 minutes, until pie is bubbling and brown.

I like to decorate and brush my pie crusts with cream … number cutters I picked up at an estate sale came in handy today!

Everything

Special, isn't it!

Always make some cinnamon rolls from the extra pie dough!

Gone in less than 20 minutes

Don’t have time or inclination to make your own pie? How about a homemade pie from our Bakery friends on the hill?