Deep-Dish Cherry Pie
(not for shallow pie pans)
For a 9-inch pie:
3 cans of tart pie cherries (save the juice!)
1 cup granulated sugar (for sweeter pie, add 1/4 cup additional sugar)
1/3 cup corn starch
2 Tbsp lemon juice
¼ tsp almond extract
Prepare pie crust dough sufficient for two crusts – one for the bottom, one for the top. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to roll it out.
Drain the juice from the cherries into a stockpot, reserving 1/3 cup of the juice in a separate small bowl. Add cornstarch to this reserved juice and stir well to combine. Set aside.
Measure the juice and return to the stockpot. Simmer the juice until it is reduced in volume to about half of what it was. Add the sugar and stir well. Bring to a gentle boil.
Stir in the dissolved cornstarch mixture. Cook, stirring, until thickened, about three minutes or so. Be sure you don't let it stick to the bottom of the pan! It should be very thick. If not, dissolve some more cornstarch in a small amount of water, and add to the mixture, and cook until thickened.
Fold in the lemon juice, almond extract and cherries so everything is thoroughly blended. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature or thereabouts.
Preheat the oven to 400°
Retrieve the pie crust dough from the refrigerator. Set aside about 1/3 of the dough to use for the lattice on top of the pie. Roll out the dough and gently place it in the pie pan. Be sure you have some dough hanging over the edge of the pan.
Spoon the cherry filling into the unbaked crust.
Roll out the remaining pie dough into approximately a 10-inch circle. Cut into strips about ½ inch wide. Lay half of the strips in one direction, and the rest going perpendicular to the first ones. If you want, get fancy and weave them, but that's a pain in the neck and the strips will probably break.
Pinch the edges of the top and bottom crusts together, and crimp.
If you want to get super-fancy, brush a thin coating of beaten egg-white over the top of the crust and sprinkle lightly with granulated sugar. (Don't bother with this step unless you are really trying to impress someone or entering your pie in the County Fair.)
Set the pie on a cookie sheet to catch any overflows. (Fruit pies sometimes boil over. If the sugary pie filling overflows, the floor of your oven will turn into a smoking mess of hot fruity lava and you will be pissed off, use bad language, and probably scare the entire neighborhood the whole time you're cleaning it up.)
Bake at 400° for 40-45 minutes.
Remove the pie from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool for several hours. Once cooled completely you can serve it, or cover and refrigerate it overnight to serve the next day.
If you have leftovers you've done something wrong.
Have Pies, Will Travel, March 27, 2021
(Post-vaccination Get-Out-Of-Quarantine celebration!)