Alpha Bakers: Sour Cherry Pie

I am making 1/4 recipe of Cherries and Raspberries Pie instead of Sour Cherry Pie, made from frozen fruits. There are no fresh cherries this time of year. I know there is a variation in the book to use canned sour cherries but I dislike canned stuff and prefer to avoid using it, if possible. Somehow frozen feels better. There are fresh raspberries from California but it has the california price, ha! I have frozen raspberries in the freezer so I thought I add it to the pie to give it a more sour taste.

I wish we are making this pie in the summer instead of now. We have a cherry tree in our backyard that produced sour cherries. But it is only the middle of March now and the cherry tree is still hibernating, so we have to settle with frozen sweet cherries from the grocery store.

I love making these. Kinda funny to say that since I'm not a pie fan. Perhaps, like Marie have said, Rose will make a convert out of me. But I do have a strong bias towards any pretty dessert. Sometimes I feel I don't care much if I like the taste as long as it looks pretty for the pictures. I know this puts me in an odd category but I really don't care.

Doesn't the below picture makes you want to eat it!? :)

I usually try not to deviate from the recipe too much. I am already using the wrong fruits for this (though I am "blaming" the fact we're making this is March :)). This pie used a small quantity of almond extract, divided by 1/4 it becomes a super duper small quantity, but I decided to get the extract anyway. I could totally use my vanilla extract but I didn't.

There is not much high altitude adjustment, the baking powder quantity is so small I didn't adjust. I had to add 1 teaspoon of heavy cream to the pie dough but that's about it.

My baby cherry pie baked for 55 minutes! The crust didn't want to brown so I kept baking it. It turned out good though next time I will try some egg wash. The slice in the photo disintegrated but that is because I cut into it only after an hour cooling. It was already 6 PM and I wanted to take the photo before it gets dark.

Step by step photos:

This is the frozen cherries that I used.

My renegade bowl method of making pie crust. Flour, baking powder, salt, and cream cheese.

Mix until resembling corn meal.

Add cubed buttah!

Add cider vinegar and heavy cream. Since this is 1/4 recipe and full recipe used 1/4 tsp of cider vinegar, I basically added a drop. Really silly quantity except I do have a bottle of cider vinegar so might as well.

Baby pie dough.

I let the frozen cherries defrost at room temperature. Then add the liquid from the frozen raspberries, mix it with the sugar and let it sit for 10 minutes. Then cook it at medium heat, stirring constantly until the sugar melt. Let cool.

My perfectly-imperfect pie dough, so cute. This went into the fridge to rest for an hour.

Filled with the cherries, raspberries, and liquid.

The fun part. Lattice.

Dear hubby got the first slice, as always. He took one bite and went "Hmmmm.. hmmm..." That about sums up how yummy it is.

Alpha Bakers is a group of bakers who are baking through The Baking Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum's latest cookbook. Come check out the rest of the group at Rose's Alpha Bakers.

Click here for a full listing of all the recipes we are baking.