We just returned from spending a week with our favorite family — The Kilmartin’s — on a week-long vacation in Michigan. We rented a house a block from Lake Michigan and enjoyed hours at the beach.
One of our adventures was cherry picking. We went to Jollay Orchards by St. Joseph, Michigan and rode on a hay ride back to the sour cherry trees to pick. None of us had ever been cherry picking before and we — including the kids — quickly filled two buckets with fresh cherries. Even the Kilmartin’s youngest, Cara, was in on the action.
Luckily, the orchard had a pitting machine so we had the cherries pitted and then took them back to our house and I threw together a cherry pie. I had to substitute a bit from a traditional recipe because we didn’t have lemon juice, but the pie turned out to be delicious.
Since we were on vacation, I didn’t make the crust from scratch — opting to cheat and use the packaged crusts. But if I would have been home, with all of my flour, baking soda, and the like I would have made Dorie Greenspan’s pie crust. It’s the only one I’ve ever made successfully!
- 5 cups fresh sour cherries, pitted
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 heaping tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons orange juice
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- In a large bowl, combine the sugar, cornstarch, juice, and vanilla to form a paste. Add the cherries and coat.
- Pour the cherry mixture into the bottom crust of the pie and then cut the top crust into strips to form a lattice pattern. Brush the lattice with milk and sprinkle with sugar.
- Bake at 425 for 45 minutes.
Do you think this would work for blueberries?
Absolutely! It’s a pretty basic fruit-pie base!