As mentioned earlier, I have a lot of frozen sour cherries in my freezer. And I mean a lot. They’re inherited from my late father-in-law who had a sour cherry tree. My go-to for excessive amounts of free fruit is to make pie out of them. So, here, for Thanksgiving, is my recipe for sour cherry pie.

This recipe uses instant tapioca because it’s absolutely magic. It works way better than flour as a thickener for acidic fruit. It’s a chemistry thing.

Note that the extracts are very nice, but optional. I currently have an overabundance of vanilla extract that I’m trying to use up. And almond extract is nice to use if you have it, but I wouldn’t expect you to make a special trip to the store if you have everything else.

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup instant tapioca
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. almond extract (optional)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
4 cups thawed, well-drained, pitted sour cherries
1 double pie crust (I use one frozen and one refrigerated roll-out.)
1/4 cup or so of water
1 egg, beaten (optional)
A little extra sugar for sprinkling on top (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Pull out the pie crusts to warm up a bit on the counter.
3. Mix first 5 ingredients in large bowl. A pastry blender works well.
4. Add cherries and toss until coated.
5. Let mixture sit 10-15 minutes.
6. If your bottom pie crust isn’t already in a pie pan, do that now.
7. Place pie pan on cookie or jelly roll pan. The filling will probably bubble over when you bake it, so you might line pan with foil. This pan catches the mess.
8. Poke holes in bottom of bottom crust with fork.
9. Pre-bake the bottom crust for 4-5 minutes or so.  This prevents a doughy bottom crust, but can make adhesion with the top crust difficult if baked too long. (Might adjust time based on type of pie pan.) 
10. Fill crust with cherry mixture.
11. If needed, brush edge of crust with a little water to soften for better adhesion.
12. Position top crust and crimp edges with fork.
13. Trim excess crust. (Trimmed parts can be rolled out and cut into decorative shapes and stuck to top crust with a bit of water, if you want.)
14. Cut vent holes in top crust.
15. Optional:
    Brush top crust with egg.
    Sprinkle sugar over top crust.
16. Cover crust edges with foil or crust guard. Grease the crust guard to hopefully avoid sticking and then wish for the best.
17. Bake for 40 minutes.
18. Carefully remove crust guard and bake an additional 10 minutes. (If needed.)
19. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.