Can We Bake a Cherry Pie

Pies are not my forte. When I was a teaching assistant for a food science lab in grad school, we had one lab that I nicknamed the Salute to Crisco. Students made crusts with different fats (oil, butter, lard, and shortening), and then judged them on flakiness. The shortening crusts won hands down, courtesy of the hydrogenated vegetable oil and the now-vilified trans unsaturated fats. There was a stacking of the deck, however. The lard the students used was hydrogenated almost to the point of being entirely saturated. (Fun fact: Lard as it comes off the pig is relatively unsaturated. If we’d used non-hydrogenated lard, it would have won the contest.) I didn’t make pie crust at home until I discovered recipes using the food processor and all butter as the fat. Even then, pies are a once or twice a year production.

It’s high cherry season here in the Pacific Northwest. Julian had a hankering for cherry pie. He discovered an all-butter flaky pie crust and cherry pie recipes on seriouseats.com. He had me watch the pie crust video. The technique looked straightforward, but I was a bit put off by the blue nail polish on the demonstrator’s hands. (It’s the recovering Registered Dietitian in me.) The crust was as promised, easy to come together and roll. The crust went into the fridge to rest overnight, and the cherry filling making began. Since Julian is even less of a pastry-maker than I am, it fell to him to pit the cherries. I loaned him my old lab coat so the cherry juice wouldn’t splatter on his clothes. (Luckily, the pigment in cherries is water-soluble.) We used a mix of Bings and Rainiers. The thickener in the filling was tapioca starch. The pie took over an hour to bake. I was worried that it would be incinerated, but it came out golden brown.

The additional feature of the pie was cherry whipped cream. You marinate the cherry pits in heavy cream for a couple hours, then whip the cream. We used our nitrous oxide cream dispenser, otherwise known as the Whippy Thang. This was a mistake – the cream pretty much solidified within the container. Next time we’ll know to whip the cream the old-fashioned way.

The pie’s destination was the annual July 4th feed and fireworks-watching extravaganza at our friend BG’s house. It was very well received. Only a small piece returned home with us, and that didn’t last the night. We’d make this recipe again.