Many MANY years ago, when I was growing up on a farm in the Great Lakes area, we had a black cherry tree. My mother often made pies with those cherries, and we loved them! To be honest, it was the only kind of cherry pie I knew until I grew up and moved out on my own. I made them a time or two, too, when I was learning to bake in my pre-teens. I didn't have a recipe then, don't have one now. I just remember we pitted the cherries, but left them whole. I do know we used tapioca for thickening. It was the only thing my mother ever used for thickening any fruit pies, and I still use it to this day, much prefer it over flour or corn starch. Have no idea how much sugar was used, probably gauged the amount by the sweetness of the cherries at the time.

I envy you the reasonable prices! They are priced like gold here!

Rusty

Here's the recipe I made for sour cherries:

Cherry pie filling:*

2 tbsp
fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup
sugar (start with 1/3 cup and add more if needed)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 to 2-1/2 cups
fresh pitted cherries

Combine
sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice in a bowl, stir, add cherries, and let sit for at least 6 hours,
stirring occasionally. Drain off and reserve cherry syrup.

I used this to make cherry cream crunch as well as pies, and I did cut the cherries in half. The important thing is to have a cherry pitter. I have had a couple of them, and the one I use for olives is the one I kept. If you are using sweet cherries, you will need less sugar. I agree that tapioca would be a better thickener than cornstarch, and I will have to try that next time. I do have tapioca flour on hand. I used most of the cherry syrup when making pies, but not all of it when I make cherry cream crunch.

I have a vintage pitter so i just use that. No cherries at all the past two years but my tree is full now. (we shall see about the birds but i did put some tule bags over some).

I make a rustic tart with just a bottom crust. I switched to tapioca years ago. I find it does not detract from the fruit. Flavorless with a bit of lemon zest, wild thyme and a quick crack of black pepper. And i tuck a little surprise of chopped dark chocolate into the outer edge of the crust.

Not crazy about mile high goopy sweet double crust pie.

Another recipe to try is a DutchBaby or a Clafoutis. Julia child's recipe is amazing and easily found in a google search. Cherries in a custard. A few weeks ago i hosted a desert party and made a raspberry/rhubarb one (with a little chocolate tucked in) ...big hit. -Using other fruit than cherry it is really a Flaugnarde but nobody seems to know what that is.

This is a Cooking Light recipe for a Cherry Cranberry Crumble, I love it and make it all the time. If you can't find cranberries you could just double up on the cherries or use some other fruit. Canned cranberries might work too. It would make a good filling and topping for a Dutch-type pie.
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/cranberry-cherry-crumble

• 3 cups fresh or frozen cranberries, thawed
• 3 cups frozen pitted dark sweet cherries, thawed
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries, chopped
• 1/4 cup dried cherries, chopped
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
• Cooking spray
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds, chopped
• 1/4 cup regular oats
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour (about 1 1/8 ounces)
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 375°.

Combine first 7
ingredients in a large bowl, tossing gently to coat fruit. Spoon
cranberry mixture into an 8-inch square baking dish coated with cooking
spray.

Combine almonds and the next 7 ingredients (through
extract) in a medium bowl; cut in butter with a pastry blender or 2
knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle oat mixture evenly
over cranberry mixture. Bake at 375° for 45 minutes or until filling is
bubbly and topping is golden.

Ruthanna, The Princess made Sweet Cherry Handpies for the County Fair and won a ribbon. We did have to start with a little sugar in the filling as the fruit is so sweet, and add until it was "right". The recipe comes from Farm Journal's Complete Pie Cookbook, although we left the layer of cream cheese out of it because we could not make anything that required refrigeration.

Sweet Cherry Pie

Baked 9" pie shell
2 (1 lb.) cans pitted dark sweet
cherries
2/3 c. sugar
3 Tb. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. salt
1 Tb.
butter
2 Tb. lemon juice
1 (3 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
Whipped cream
(optional)

Drain cherries, reserving juice. Combine sugar, cornstarch and
salt in saucepan. Add 1 c. cherry juice. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium
heat until mixture comes to a boil. Continue cooking and stirring 2 minutes. Add
cherries and cook 2 minutes.

Remove from heat; add butter and lemon
juice, stirring until butter melts. Cool.

Let cream cheese stand at room
temperature to soften. Spread over bottom of pie shell. Pour cooled cherry
mixture into pie shell. Chill several hours. Serve garnished with whipped
cream.

Annie

When substituting tapioca for other thickeners in fruit pies, how does one determine how much to use?

Pink warm mama, I wish I could answer your question, but I have no earthly idea! I'm sure that some time or another in my life time, I have used a recipe for fruit pies, but I can't remember ever having done so. I do like my mother did, by looks and taste of the fruit I'm using.

And I have never used tapioca flour, either, I wouldn't begin to know how to use it. So Lars' comment about not having the flour on hand intrigued me, as did Sleevendog's comment about running the pearls through the grinder. I just sprinkle the pearls on the fruit in a bowl, & mix to combine.

Sorry I'm no help on this. I guess one of these days I'm going to have to work out recipes for some of these things, my Grand kids are always asking for them.

Some mighty good sounding recipes here, I hope cherries come down in price!

By the way, probably off topic, but cherries are also very helpful in relieving arthritis pain.

Rusty

Rusty - thank you so much. Your directions sound so simple I shall follow them. Also thanks for the arthritis hint. Pink

Just have a quick minute here. I've kind of gotten stuck on galettes (http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/07/blue-and-red-berry-ricotta-galette/) because I think they give the green-light to be "rustic" (or for me sloppy:) I just made one with cherries. As an aside, my family is too
stinking lazy to pit cherries, but if I do and throw them together with
butter and sugar, voila, they'll go. I also threw in some blueberries
that were hanging around. I made the last one last year with strawberries, peaches and blueberries. This is a pretty forgiving, consistent,
flexible recipe -- good for my level of baking:)

I'm be returning to this thread to try some other recipes offered here -- they all sound great.

Cathy in SWPA

That is gorgeous and my style desert for sure. Beautiful crust!

I use tapioca all the time and follow the guidelines on the box. Tapioca is my preferred thickener for berries. Are cherries berries?....google says no. but they look like a big berry.

Cathy, the galette looks delicious and I love the blue plate!

Here are the pies baked by the Princess:

<a href="http://s18.photobucket.com/user/annie1992/media/Food/IMG_1755.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/annie1992/Food/IMG_1755.jpg" border="0" alt="Fair Food 2013 photo IMG_1755.jpg"/></a>

Annie

OK, as usual, that didn't work, LOL. Let me try again....

[URL=http://s18.photobucket.com/user/annie1992/media/Food/IMG_1755.jpg.html][IMG]http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/annie1992/Food/IMG_1755.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Oh, never mind. I hate Houzz.

Annie

Thanks so much for all the ideas and recipes. I will be getting the cherries tomorrow afternoon. DH tells me tonight that his grandmother used to make black cherry custard pie so I think I'll attempt that on Friday. I'll let you know how it turned out.

Sleevendog, I'm a fan of anything "crust.":) Also, anything flexible. Love to see your vintage pitter. I ended up first putting a cherry into the top of a bottle and pushing the pit through with a straw -- thought it looked efficient. Bah! Ended up just using the straw and hand approach, staining my shirt, hands and towel but getting the job done:)

Annie, you're so sweet to comment on that plate. It was from my grandmother, who is making me smile right now just thinking about her -- thanks for that! I concur with your Houzz comment. Can you click photo icon below and upload the pics that way? I'd love to see pies baked by your Princess. If not, I know that they are beautiful, delicious and made for a fun time:) Creating memories are the most important thing.

After reading this thread, I'm going to swerve from baking breads to pies, crumbles, grumbles, etc:) Great inspiration.

Cathy in SWPA

Since you are making a cherry custard pie (which I think is a great idea, and I would like the recipe!), I thought I would add the Cherry Cream Crunch recipe here, as it might be somewhat similar:

Cherry Cream Crunch

Cherry pie filling:*

2 tbsp
fresh lemon juice
1/3 to
1/2 cup sugar (depending on sweetness of cherries)
2 to 2½
cups fresh pitted cherries
2
tablespoons cornstarch

Crust:

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup flaked or shredded coconut, unsweetened
1 cup granola (or oatmeal or rice flakes**)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Lemon filling:

2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 can (15 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 tbsp grated lemon rind
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/8 tsp salt (optional)

Cherry pie filling:

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a
bowl, stir, add cherries, and let sit for at least 6 hours,
stirring occasionally. Drain off and reserve cherry syrup.

Combine a small amount of syrup to
cornstarch to make a paste, then stir cornstarch paste back
into syrup. Pour mixture into a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring,
until the sauce thickens. Stir in the drained cherries. Cool before using.

Crust:

Cream butter in a large mixing bowl; gradually
add brown sugar and vanilla. Mix well. Sift flour, salt and cinnamon; add to
butter mixture. Stir in coconut, granola, and walnuts. Press 2-1/2 cups of
crumb mixture into bottom of ungreased 9x13 inch baking dish. Bake at 375 degrees
for 12 minutes.

Lemon filling:

Prepare the lemon filling by combining the
slightly beaten eggs, sweetened condensed milk, grated lemon rind, fresh lemon
juice and salt. Stir until mixture thickens. Remove crust from the oven and
spread with lemon filling. Spoon the cherry pie filling over the lemon filling
and then sprinkle with the remaining crumb mixture. Return to oven and bake at
375 degrees 15 to 18 minutes or until delicately browned. Chill before serving.
May be served topped with whipped cream. Serves 9 to 12.

*You can substitute 1 can (1 lb 4 oz.) of
canned cherry pie filling

**If using oatmeal or rice flakes instead of
granola, increase brown sugar to 1/2 cup.

This recipe was written when the cans of sweetened condensed milk were 15 oz instead of 14 oz., but it is okay with 14 oz cans. Sometimes I add a couple of tablespoons of cream cheese to make up for the lost milk.

Here is the custard i mentioned above. I picked this one out of google image because i like the custard to have a top crust...

http://www.bakeawaywithme.com/2012/08/happy-100th-birthday-julia-child-and.html

I need a better shallow tart pan. (all mine have the removable bottom). The custard would leak through.

Last month i used an oval deep cast iron that did not cook so even but a happy accident happened. The temp had dropped in the oven so DH put a seasoned birch log in and the extra hot and fast heat made it rise 'to the gip rock!' my friend said. It was very dramatic like a puffed soufle'. It was this pan.

(this is cornbread, not clafoutis)

I might try and recreate that accident. Crank the oven heat the last 15min.

Amazing what the most basic ingredients of flour, eggs, sugar and milk will do.

Cathy, I can use the photo icon to add pictures that are just on my computer, but I put the pie photos onto Photobucket and as usual, I can't get them off and onto here. Grrrr.

Annie

Okay, Annie, these came from Photobucket. I did the second one by uploading it today to make sure new additions work.

Here's instructions for PC (if you're on Mac, I'm sure there's an equivalent, but I only know a couple of words of Mac):

1. Go to the image in your Photobucket library and click on it, so that it opens big on its own page.
   2. Right click on the image to open the context menu and select View Image.
   3. Click on the location box that shows you the URL of the page you're on. It's at the top of the browser on an old style computer, but if it's not on your system, I'm sure someone can tell you.
   4. Highlight the location and press CTRl+C (both buttons at once) to copy it.
   5. Return to your Gardenweb message and click on the Photo button and Paste (CTRL+V), then press Enter or click on Open. The image will appear where the cursor is in the message.
   
   
   
   

Annie, admission: I absolutely empathize with your frustration .... really, really, really ... cause there are days when I just don't want to learn. That said, I knew plllog would come to the rescue -- just in case you feel like learning today --- ha!:)

Cathy in SWPA

What do you see when you hit the photo icon below?

I see this...

It highlights my desktop but i can them move it down to photos...and scroll. Or i take a photo and drop it onto my desktop, go back to desktop and hit 'choose'. With iCloud, i take a pick with my phone and it appears in my files.

I stopped using flickr and hosting sites as they became confusing with different forums.

You might be able to grab a photo from photo bucket and drop it onto your desktop? (it will not leave your bucket place i don't think) Then you can start a desktop file of foods me thinks. A bit like having a handy back-up.

On mac you can hold down, simultaneously, command+shift+4, let go, then you can move the floating little icon to control and make an area to copy...let go and it will be on your desktop. A screen shot.

Testing, since I haven't posted a photo on the new system yet. Walk in the rose garden this morning:

Nope, when I post on Facebook, no problem. With same procedure here,it's inverted.

Thanks, pllog. I was given instructions once, and they worked, but now they don't work any more. (sigh) Let me try....

http://s18.photobucket.com/user/annie1992/media/Food/IMG_1755.jpg.html?sort=3&o=660

Annie

I don't get a box that says "location" with a right click. I tried properties and got a URL, but only got the above. I have Windows 8, of course, the invention of the devil.

If I click Image, I get this...

[URL=http://s18.photobucket.com/user/annie1992/media/Food/IMG_1755.jpg.html][IMG]http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/annie1992/Food/IMG_1755.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

So, as usual, I learned nothing except that my backspace key sticks, LOL.

Annie

Annie, I see "Makayla's sweet cherry hand pies"? when I clicked on your first link -- fair food album? Regardless of getting the photo here or not or whether that was the photo you meant to share, those are some GREAT GREAT GREAT looking cherry pies (stellar crust!) and most importantly, a one in a million smile. That smile made me smile -- Love it.

Cathy in SWPA

I'll let the tech people continue working :)

Annie, I went to Photobucket and clicked on a pic of Roxie to enlarge it.

On the right, under Options, I clicked Download. It saved to my desktop (my preference)

I then went to the Camera icon (Photo) here and downloaded the pic from my desktop

OK, Jasdip, let me try that.....

Well, I don't think so, I just get the black box with an "x", we'll see what it does when I submit.

Annie

Hooray, that worked! Before I submit, I just get a black box, but when I actually submit, the picture comes through.

Thanks, Jasdip!

Annie

I'll have one of each please!!

I made the cherry custard pie and I didn't like it at all. The custard was too sweet and I think the heat was too high because the crust was browned but the custard wasn't done enough in the middle. I won't be posting the recipe.

However, I did make tapioca pudding and after it started to cool, stirred in coarsely chopped cherries and after chilling, served with whipped cream and shaved dark chocolate on top. That was much better than the pie.

I can't stop humming that billy boy song. Just wanted to say HI , Ruthanna.