Ancestral Cherry Pie

First of all, I want to say how precious these cherries are. The tree is in Anna and Bill’s yard (see previous posts The Farmer’s Mantra and The Art of Anna Karin) and every single year they have to fight the crows for them. The first year the crows won. As soon as the cherries were ripe, the crows had them all, within three hours!

The next year they strung netting around the whole tree and actually retained some cherries for themselves. Then THIS YEAR, the crows just never showed up and the tree was filled to overflowing with sumptuous, ripe cherries. Confused by this, Bill mentioned it to Gordon Tooley who owns Tooley’s Trees (see previous post Bill Loyd’s Sign for Tooley’s Trees) and Gordon solved the mystery. He said all the crows were at his place eating every cherry in sight and they were just too full to fly up to Anna and Bill’s. So, lucky us, we had cherries for a pie—for MANY pies in fact.

Here is Anna’s recipe, adapted from America the Beautiful Cook Book, which I also quote here.

Anna’s Cherry Pie

“Wild cherries were plentiful as pioneers pushed their way into the upper Midwest. The Indians had been using them for years, pounding them into the pemmican (a kind of meat cake). Then the settlers cross-bred the cherries with European varieties.”

Pastry

2 cups flour
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
Cold butter—1/2 cup cut into pieces

Put flour, sugar and salt into the bowl of a mixer. Attach the mixer blade and add the butter. Turn the machine on and let it go for awhile until it mixes totally with the flour. Add very cold water (Anna places the water in the freezer for a little while to get it very cold) while it’s mixing, just a few drops at a time, until it clumps into a dough ball. Put it in the refrigerator for a bit to get it very cold. Remove from refrigerator, divide into two balls and roll out one at a time. Place the first crust into the pie dish. Bake it for a little bit at 350 so it’s not soggy. Set aside the other dough ball.

Filling

Pit 4 cups cherries
Put in bowl add sugar, about 1 cup
Add 1 Tbs red wine vinegar
Add 5 Tbs flour, stirring in 1 Tbs at a time, until mixed well
Put the filling into the pie dish
Top with 1 1/2 Tbs softened butter

Roll out and cut the upper crust into strips and lace on top.

Set oven to 450. Bake for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 and bake for another 30 minutes.

This is a wonderful pie that I highly recommend.

Love to you all,
Jeane