When out walking our Golden Retriever with my husband a couple weeks ago, I noticed one of our neighbors sipping an evening beer while picking cherries from one of six cherry trees in his front yard. One of six (trees, not beer)! And except for the eastern-most tree, which had already been stripped clean by birds, they were all laden and just now ripening. In chilly higher-altitude Colorado, our cherry harvest season comes a bit later than other parts of the country.
With an eye for wildcrafting in suburban America (Is that an oxymoron?), I shouted over to our neighbor, "What a beautiful bunch of cherries!" And I received the hoped-for response: "We have way too many cherries; come back and pick some. In fact, come and pick as many as you want." Oh blessed be! A ready source of free pie-making sour cherries.
Armed with baskets, I roped my husband into a Saturday morning foray back to the cherry trees. We picked, and picked, and picked some more. We filled our baskets, then lugged them back home. I dumped the cherries into the sink and filled it with water. Then, I contemplated the task ahead while we ate lunch. That's when my husband made a speedy exit, and the kids were nowhere to be found.
If you have ever pitted cherries, you know that's when the real fun begins. I figured we had at least 10 pounds of cherries. Really, the pitting, itself, is not difficult if you have ripe cherries. A gentle squeeze and the seed pops right out. (Hold the cherry over the bowl of finished pitted product so as to capture the juice that drips out when you squeeze the fruit.) But, when you've harvested 10 pounds, the task can be daunting just from the sheer number of cherries. I started timing myself with the pitting process to estimate how long it would take to pit the entire batch. I stopped to crank up the stereo connected to my iPod. Any chore is easier with good tunes. Then back to the cherries. About an hour later I was finished with about a quarter of the cherries. I took a quick break to size up the situation. No way was I going to pit cherries for four straight hours. Either I had to stall out and recruit help, or it was time to do what any sensible home chef would do: start baking a cherry pie. I opted for the latter, ensuring we'd have a warm mouth-watering dessert that evening. Vanilla ice cream in the freezer? Check.
I measured out the pitted cherries and arrived at five cups, just the perfect amount for a 9-inch pie. (I refrigerated the remaining cherries, a temporary measure.) I like to make baked fruit pies with a lattice work crust, rather than a full double crust, because I think it's prettier and because it's easier to see when the fruit and filling are fully baked. I also use all butter rather than mixing with Crisco or lard, as many pie crust recipes suggest. I like the texture and flavor provided by the butter. As seldom as we eat home-baked pies in our household (maybe five or six during the year), I don't worry about the nutrition content of the crust. I'm looking for maximum flakiness and flavor to honor the rare treat of summer cherries, berries or peaches. Be sure to use ice-cold water when you're making the crust and handle as little as possible to reduce gluten development. These tips help ensure a flaky, rather than tough, crust.
As far as the filling goes, canned cherry filling has turned off many a person to cherry pie. The only way I will make cherry pie is with fresh sour cherries. Otherwise, it's not worth my effort. Some cherry pie recipes call for almond extract but I forgo that ingredient because it can easily overpower the cherry flavor profile. Other than these suggestions, I'm not providing a recipe outright because I have followed recipes from several common cookbooks (with my suggested modifications and tips), all with fabulous results. The key: Start with good pie cherries!
We enjoyed our first cherry pie that evening, with dollops of vanilla ice cream. Originally I had intended to make cherry preserves as well, but the pie was just too good! And it vanished that evening, no such thing as leftovers when it comes to pie.
So I pitted more the next day and baked another pie. Two nights in a row with summer cherry pie. What a heavenly treat. I thought about writing a blog post, A Week of Cherry Pies. But I thought the better of it, waited another day and pitted the rest, which gave us enough cherries for two more pies. I froze those cherries in two sugar-pack batches, measuring cherries and sugar for one pie per batch. (I marked the amounts on the freezer packs, for future reference.) That will make for easy cherry pie baking later in the year. Frozen sugar-packed cherries should last about six months. So when a fall breeze is in the air and the leaves start to turn, we'll relive our summer treat.
