Before I made this pie (and then ate a quarter of it during a revision break), I’d never actually eaten cherry pie before. I think this is down to two factors: I basically never bake with cherries (yo, £4.50 for a 400 g carton. I’d normally rather just eat them straight up) and I also don’t bake pie that much; check my archives, you’ll see how true this is. I adore pastry, especially this almondy, mega buttery one but I usually find that there’s just TOO much fruit in pies for my taste. I want a generous pastry:fruit ratio, man. I want butter.
I haven’t really been around all that much pie in my lifetime, save one pie: Gooseberry pie.
As my dad grows gooseberries, my mum always ends up making pie with them (because other than making fool, there’s not much else you can do with them) using a special pastry – the amount of butter in it and the use of ground almonds makes it a verrrry delicate dough which sinks down and hugs the fruit as the pie bakes. The resulting pie has a bumpy, kinda cobblestone-y look to it which is ADORABLE. The key to success there is the large, rounded shape of the berries..
..and what’s similar between gooseberries and cherries? Their shape! So I subbed the gooseberries for whole, pitted cherries which had been soaked in amaretto (*insert thumbs up emoji*) and voila, the same bumpy pie effect was achieved.
It was a bit more effort than I was anticipating to pit the cherries (if you don’t bake with cherries, you probably won’t own a cherry pitter…e.g. me) but I found using a paring knife and a pastry tip was easy enough. It just looked a bit like I’d had a knife accident and bled everywhere for a lil bit :/ so make sure you don an apron/don’t wear a white top if you’re in the make-shift cherry pitting game.
I think that cutting the cherries in half and removing the pits that way would also work but the bumpiness wouldn’t be as extreme soo it’s totally up to you! oH and if you DO happen to have gooseberries and wanna use them instead Go. For. It. You might just have to increase the sweetness of the filling cos gooseberries are tart az.
Otherwise I really recommend trying pie my way (I’m talking about how it’s like 50% crust) or if you really have to make it fruitier then double up the filling and just don’t tell me you did that.
Pit the cherries and place into a bowl with the amaretto/kirsch, sugar and flour. Stir together and set aside.
Make the pastry in a food processor: blend together the first 4 ingredients. Add in the butter and pulse until a crumbly texture is achieved. Add in the egg, egg yolk and almond extract and blend until a smooth dough forms.
Make the pastry by hand: in a bowl, stir together the first 4 ingredients. Add the butter to the bowl and rub into the dry ingredients using your fingertips until a crumbly texture is achieved. Add the egg, egg yolk and almond extract, stir/knead together until a smooth dough forms.
Divide the dough into two balls, flatten them into disks, wrap in plastic wrap then chill for at least 4 hours (it's quite soft dough, so it's easier to handle when it's cold).
Once the pastry has chilled: Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Roll out one disk of pastry on a piece of lightly floured parchment paper using a lightly floured rolling pin until it's a couple of inches larger than an 8-inch pie tin. Flip the parchment paper and pastry over onto the tin and peel away the paper so that the tin is now lined with the under layer of pastry.
Fill the pastry-lined tin with the cherry mixture and roll out the second disk of pastry on a piece of floured parchment paper as before. Gently flip the parchment over on top of the cherry filling and peel the paper away so the pie is covered by the top crust of pastry. Crimp the edges of the pastry together with your fingers or a fork and then bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown. Decorate with a shower of superfine (caster) sugar and serve.
What patience to pit all those cherries but what a lovely finish. Like you I would have to prise the required amount of cherries from my daughter’s bowl as she loves this precious fruit. She might be tempted by the pie though!!
What a pretty pie! I admit that I favor more filling, but I could handle your version, too. You can’t go wrong with a lovely buttery crust.
lol, love the name!! And this pie sounds unreal….those bumps look FAB!
I LOVE how that pastry hugs those cherries!
I made my first cherry pie today too! Mine didn’t look as beautiful as yours though (certainly not blog-worthy!)… I blame my boyfriend for ruining my pastry with his hot hands!
Next time I’ll be sure to try your recipe instead!
This is one gorgeous pie! Cherry pie is hands down my favorite pie.
This is sooo pretty, the aesthetics make it so appealing! I’m obsessed with pastry too… I mean dessert needs to be dessert, so 50% crust sounds perfect. I’ve never had gooseberries, so I’m incentivized now to go on a hunt for some (until then, cherries sound amazing). Yum!
1) This is the cutest pie evaaaah! I love the bumps—and I adore the fact that you describe the pastry as hugging the fruit… that only makes it cuter.
2) Those white and blue plates that you have are gorgeous. Their clean aesthetic paired with slightly messy pie makes for delightful photos.
A girl after my own heart! I also don’t like to eat a lot of pies because I want more pastry than fruit too! Happy to know that I’m not the only one.
This is pretty neat, love the bumpy look and almond tends to make everything better + would pair magnificently with cherries. Still have to work up the courage to pit that many cherries though eek.
We rarely get cherries in Australia in winter but come summer I will be trying this!
I love the bumps! So clever! 🙂 Pinned!
I love this! It looks absolutely fantastic! I’ve always wanted to make a cherry pie.
Yum this looks fab. I wouldn’t even bother making a cherry pie it’s too much work pitting them but I love the look of this one.
YESS! It’s about time that we make ALL pies bumpy!!! I’m the same as you, I’m a big crust guy, so this is just perfect for me.
So gorgeous! This effect is so awesome! And I salute you for pitting all those cherries!!!
I’d probably have given up and just stuffed all the cherries in my mouth to avoid pitting them all. But dang, that bumpiness really is adorable–and I’m not much of a ‘bumps’ kind of person (they give me goosebumps when they appear in nature–kind of a weird amalgamation of the words ‘bumps’ and ‘gooseberries’ happening here. weird? yeahhh…). But I’d eat this up in a heartbeat–fork, check? Rambling, check? Cherry pie–check! Your pie is making me deliciously delirious. Yum, gal!
I too love cherries/amaretto and all pastry. I can’t wait to try your almond pastry as double crust pie dough. Lovely photos too!
I think you’re onto something here with the pie to pastry ratio. Especially with a crust as good as your almond meal crust. Bravo!
girrrrrl, you get me with this whole generous pastry:fruit ratio. and this is a genius fix! i love the idea of ground almonds in pastry dough. i mean cherries + almonds = all the heart emojis?
Holy heck I’m in love with this bumpy pie! So pretty!
I adore cherry pie (American, here), and definitely want to try out your recipe. I have a couple questions though, re. your measurements- when you use spoon measurements (tbsp, tsp) do you use American-stye measuring spoons, or the spoons from the silverware drawer? Also, when you’re baking, do you start with the weights, then convert to cups, or vice versa? Thanks… sorry for all of the questions, I’ve had really excellent and really poor results from some British recipes, and definitely want to make this pie just as you would. Cheers!
Thanks Catherine! I use measuring spoons (1 tsp = 5ml, 1 tbsp = 15 ml) when baking. For this recipe the pastry recipe came from my grandma who was British so it was written in weights, I converted the pastry recipe to volume using a conversion chart that I made. If you have a weighing scale if recommend using it for making pastry because it’s a lot more accurate!
OH MY GOD I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS PIE FOR SO LONG!!! It’s even more ingenious than I thought (I though you somehow hand-crafted bumps of pastry on top). That tip about cherry pitting with a pastry tip is so smart. Will definitely be putting that to work someday soon 😉 You are brilliant. And high pastry: fruit ratio? YES.
You’re right, the crust is cute! I love your use of ground almonds, I’m sure it adds a nice texture. I will definitely try this pie out.
Oh my gosh THANK YOU, someone else who really mostly only eats pie for the pastry! I find pies too full of fruit, too. I’m all about the buttery pastry. (I’m the same with crumble and if people aren’t careful I’ll eat all the topping and they’ll just be left with cooked fruit.) I’m so excited to try this, thanks!
Wow, this is gorgeous! I love me some cherry pie.
SUCH a cute pie! I hear you on the eating cherries straight up, but wowza on the gooseberries, we have a bush too and I haven’t a clue what to do with them much, this pie might be getting made into your mums original soon!
gorgeous! love love love this!
Mega love for this lumpy bumpy pie. Total summer eating perfection.
YUM. this looks divine… love the bumps! thanks for the great read and inspiring post!
I’ve never tried cherry pie either! I grew up in a house where the only pie type thing Mum made was Linzer Torte (and I still love it). Guess I’ll have to wait until cherries come into season and stretch my taste buds on this one 🙂 I’m sure it won’t be hard work to devour some sweet slices!
Girl, this is such a pretty pie!! Love the bumpy look!
I loooooove this pastry. The bumpiness is definitely my style. I like my fruit, and especially cherries, but I also like my crust, so I need a nice thick crust and lots of fruit. Usually my pies turn into these super thick mega-pies that require some bench pressing before you can lift it. I also don’t have a cherry pitter and my hands and knife always look like I murdered someone by the end!
Update: I left the dough in the freezer the whole day while I was at work. I took it out, left it for about 5 minutes and rolled it from frozen, turning the dough itself like you suggested. The first few rolls require some force, but it quickly became easier. And it worked! I think another reason I had problems, initially, was because I had to roll it a bit larger to fit a 9 inch tin! The pie was a big hit with my Korean and foreign co-workers (I took it into work today) and one said it was ‘the best pie crust she had ever had’. Kudos for the recipe! Deliciousss.
What a beautiful pie! I’m drooling!
Ooh. It so pretty. Me want! Plus, Sainsburys do frozen cherries at less than half the price of fresh which are perfect for cooking with. AND theyre already pitted!
That is a seriously gorgeous pie! Do you teach classes on how to crimp? ’cause you should.
I’ve recently started learning how to cook and this is the best dish I’ve ever made!
1. The dough is terribly fragile. When you reach the stage of rolling the dough, be prepared to dust the dough and parchment with flour a couple of times.
2. Use a shallow pie dish. I used one that was too deep for this recipe and I couldn’t achieve the crimping as nice as the one shown in the photo.
3. The dough is hard to seperate from the parchment. Go slow and have patience.
4. If you set aside the filling the entire day like I did, there is a build up of liquid from the cherries (probably because there are holes in all the cherries after I pitted them). I don’t think it’s a good idea to use all of the liquid for the filling as it made the base of the pie a bit too soft.
Feel free to let me know what you think about any of the above points!