Homemade Friday: Sweet Cherry Pie

I think cherry pie might be my favorite.  Which really is saying something because there are a lot of super delicious desserts full of chocolate and/or cream cheese and butter.  And then some more butter.

But I’ve always had a special place in my heart and sweets-loving belly for cherry pie.  So it’s surprising that I haven’t ever made one myself.  This summer I vowed to remedy that.  And then promptly forgot about it.  And the cherries I’d planned on using for it went bad before I could make the pie.

But last weekend we had a sort of mini-celebration with Chris’ family for him finally finishing grad school (all but the exam, which is in November.  Have I already told you that?  I’m so thrilled he’s done with classes I feel like I’ve told everyone I come in contact with).

So I thought it would be the perfect time to try a new pie, my favorite pie.  The recipe was one that I’d stared at longingly for what seems like, and probably has been, years.  It’s from smitten kitchen, one of my favorite sites for recipes, if you couldn’t tell already.

And the recipe was simple.  The hardest part was pitting the cherries.  I bought a cherry pitter earlier this summer to make things a little bit easier.  I tend to stock up on cherries when they’re in season because I love them so much and this just makes it easier to feed them to the kids without having to cut around the pit and possibly slice open my fingers, which has been known to happen.

 The crust for the pie wasn’t even that hard.  I used a recipe from this book, The HomemadePantry, which I highly, highly recommend.  The author tells stories to go along with each recipe, and she makes things that would normally be overwhelming seem simple.  And her crust recipe is the easiest I’ve ever found with the best results.  Also, I’ve made the poptarts on the cover.  The cinnamon sugar ones were so, so good.

So I mixed the pitted cherries with all the other ingredients.  The instructions said to drain off extra juice.  But the juice in my bowl included all the sugar and such so I just poured it all in the pie pan.  I probably shouldn’t have.  Or maybe I should have used more cornstarch?  Because this is what the pie looked like when I cut into it:

 I think part of my problem was that I used more cherries than the recipe called for.  I didn’t want them all to cook down and me to have a thin pie.  I probably shouldn’t have worried.  The cherries never actually got all that soft.  They still held their shape. 

I’m wondering if I should have cooked the cherries first in a pan in order to soften them up a bit.  Maybe I’ll do that next time.  Or follow instructions better.

But still.  Delicious pie.  And it doesn't hurt that it looked so pretty when it was finished. 

I wish I had more.

I'm kind of not smart sometimes

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Chris' family on Sunday.  His mom is nice enough to give our stomachs a break and have the holiday on a day other than the actual Thanksgiving holiday since we all have other places we're expected to show up at, too.  Plus it gives us plenty of time to visit without having to rush off somewhere else.

My job was to make pie and rolls.  I took that to mean I need to bake every single pie in the history of pies ever in the world.  And rolls.

Now to be fair to myself I did ask what particular pie was needed or requested but never got an answer so I decided to make pumpkin, pecan and apple.

Three different types of pies for eight people, including two small children.  And I decided to do this after I was told that since it was my brother-in-law Ian's birthday my mother-in-law would be making his favorite cake for him.

And then my future sister-in-law Ashley brought a super-delicious twinkie cake she'd made for a party they'd had for Ian.

If you're following along that now brings the total to three pies and two cakes for eight people, including two small children.

We didn't even cut into the pecan.

I was stuffed (like a Thanksgiving turkey!) before we even brought out coffee and dessert because everything was so, so delicious.  But I still managed to try most of everything.

I may never eat again.

That's a lie.  In fact, it's probably about time to try the pecan.  Or maybe another piece of apple.  It was pretty good.