Sweet Cherry Apple Pie

I've admittedly been a bit distracted by personal stuff of late. Nothing to worry about dear readers, just stuff that I'm letting get in the way of some delish cooking and baking and then posting about it. I'm over that now or I'll at least pretend I am and will get some of the yummy things I've been making lately posted for you all to enjoy and hopefully make yourself. The unfortunate thing about my distraction is that I missed the deadline for this month's You Want Pies With That challenge. Please head on over to the site and check what some of the other ladies have been baking for their Summer Favorites pies. ****UPDATE! The ever fabulous Holly at PheMomenon was able to squeeze me in despite my last post. Yay! ****

A few weeks ago at the cottage, the boy and I were planning dinner for Saturday night, which of course included his faves steak and potatoes and when we landed on dessert, he requested a pie but kept it pretty open-ended. I decided I wanted to see what kinds of fruits they had at the market in town before I settled on anything. While his sister bought beautiful strawberries, they looked too good and fresh to do anything other than just eat, no cooking of additional sugar required on these beautiful berries. So to the market we went to get stuff for dinner and on a hunt for some delicious looking fruit. The boy is a fan of apple pie and since I haven't made one in awhile I thought it would be nice to do an apple pie with some other fruit. Right when I walked in the front door of the market I saw the most beautifully ripe sweet cherries and decided upon a Sweet Cherry Apple Pie.




Sweet Cherry Apple Pie - printable version
serves 6-8

PIE CRUST
2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup shortening
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp allspice
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1 egg
1/4 cold water

FILLING
3 cups pitted sweet cherries - if you don't have a pitter, the pits of ripe sweet cherries come out very easily if you just cut them in half and pop the pit out with the tip of your knife.
2 cups Braeburn apples - peeled, cored and sliced
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg yolk
2 Tbsp 1/2 & 1/2

1. Make the pie crust by whisking together the flour, salt & allspice. Cut the shortening into the flour mixture until it is well combined with no bigger than pea-size lumps. Whisk together egg, vinegar, and water. Add to flour & shortening and mix to combine until a nice ball of dough forms. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Makes enough for 3 crusts.
2. In a large bowl toss all filling ingredients and let sit for 15 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 425F. Take a little more than 1/3 of the crust and roll it out to lay in the bottom of a 9" pie plate. Return to the freezer while you roll out the top crust.
4. Take 1/2 of the remaining crust (and wrap the rest up tightly and put in the freezer for another use) and roll it out so that it is just larger than the pie plate and prep for a lattice top pie. For a great tutorial on lattice topped pies, check out this post over at Simply Recipes. I wish I had seen it before making this pie!
5. Once the crust is prepped, take the pie plate out of the freezer, gently pour in filling and top with crust. Whisk together the egg yolk and half & half and gently brush all over the top crust.
6. Place pie onto a cookie sheet and bake in preheat oven for 30 minutes. Lower heat to 350F and bake for another 30. Let cool for 4 hours before serving.


The boy LOVED this pie. He had one slice the night I made it and 2 in a row the next day. I had never really used allspice unless a recipe called for it but am happy with how it worked here. Enjoy!