I have no business answering this, as I am no pie baking expert, *but* I just wanted to say that your cherry pie looks beautiful! :)

I'm wondering if the lemon reacted with the cornstarch? I vaguely recall something about citrus reducing the thickening capacity? I sometimes add a bit of almond extract to my cherry desserts...

Dawn, I think you are right! I found this info on cornstarch that says what you said. I wonder if lemon juice has the same effect on tapioca, as that is what I wanted to use.

I do not have almond extract, but I do have Amaretto, and I could add a bit of that to my cherries. I do think the flavor of almond goes well with cherry, if it is minimal.

Next time I will reduce the amount of lemon juice to 2 tbsp, which is what I had intended to use in the first place.

Thanks for the compliment on the pie! I made the lattice very tight because I like the crust and did not want too much open space on top. My strips were not the same size either, but I was not making much effort by the time I was cutting them. That really does not bother.

What does bother me is that I recently got rid of my fluted pastry wheel (which I got for making ravioli), and I would have liked to have used that for cutting the strips. I think I will get another one, just to make the pie prettier. I almost never used it for pasta, as I cared less about the look of the pasta, but I had forgotten about the lattice crust for cherry pie. I will pretty much only make cherry pies when cherries are in season, and I am considering getting a proper cherry pitter, since I used an olive pitter, which was not ideal but got the job done.

I love that your lattice is nice and tight. The crust is my favourite part of a pie, and yours is perfect.

I prefer flour to thicken a pie...I like the taste and I think I know better how much to use. For 4 cups of cherries I would have used 3 T flour mixed with the sugar....and a whiff of almond and your 2 T of lemon juice.
It's a lovely pie.....Some would be a lovely bed time snack right now!

We picked a lot of sour cherries a few weeks ago and I made our traditional 4th of July cherry pie. Here's what I do.

I wash the cherries and fill a 4-cup measuring cup before pitting. (This year I went back to pitting by hand. The Leifheit pitter was letting some of the pits get by.) I mix 2 tablespoons of Minute Tapioca with the pitted cherries and 1/2 cup of their juice. The tapioca needs to soak in the juice for a while, about 20 minutes. Sugar goes in then too, 1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup. (I freeze this amount of cherries with the 1/2 cup.) That's it. Pour into a chilled bottom crust and weave a lattice on top.

If the cherries seem unusually juicy, as they did this year from all of our rain, I use an extra teaspoon of tapioca. If you want the juice to run when the pie is cut, use less than 2 Tb.

I use much less sugar than most recipes say. We like it fairly tart.

"No one complained about it" ...I'm sure the didn't, it's beautiful.

I use a quart of cherries/berries/whatever for a standard pie. 3/4 to 1 c. of sugar depending on how sweet the fruit is (I like tart pies), and, for cherry or berry pies, 1/4 c. of instant tapioca. I do not use lemon in most cherry or berry pies, although I sometimes add 1/4 tsp of almond flavor to cherry pie. I bake most fruit pies at 400-425 for 45-50 minutes or until they're done. Homemade pies should be juicy.

I made another cherry pie Sunday morning using 1/4 cup tapioca starch instead of cornstarch, and it came out much, much waterier. I used about 4-1/2 cups of Canadian cherries (instead of the Washington cherries I used before), and I think they had more water in them than the Washington cherries. Also, they were a bit sweeter and much larger, and so I should have used less sugar. I use only 3 tablespoons of lemon juice (instead of 1/3 cup), and so that should have helped, but it didn't. Maybe I need to double the amount of tapioca.

I ordered some ClearJel from Amazon (since I have not seen it in stores) and will try that next time. The description says that it is a modified cornstarch, and I was more or less happy with the results from cornstarch but would like it a bit thicker. The pie from yesterday was more like a cobbler. I will try to buy smaller cherries next time also.

I bought a new cherry pitter, which made pitting the cherries quite a bit easier than using the olive pitter, but it missed a couple of the pits - possibly because the cherries were so large. Kevin found one of the pits in his piece of pie, but I think that's the only one that made it into the pie.

That pie is not "a bit runny" it looks perfect to me.....just the way I like....

And I love the wide lattice look.......

Good job done!!

Just wanted to let you know, Lars, I was reading a Cook's Illustrated book from the library (actually the shows from 2001-2015) and came upon the pie section. Just wanted to let you that when I saw their latticed peach pie I was reminded of your cherry pie and this post (no joke). Yours wholly surpassed theirs:) (no joke)

Cathy in SWPA

Thanks, Cathy! My second one did not turn out quite as well - I photographed to show the flaws but have not yet downloaded the photos from my camera. I made a more narrow lattice on the second one, and I like the wide lattice better. I'll try to post a photo this evening.

Here's the cherry pie made with tapioca starch instead of cornstarch, and you can see how watery it came out. Also, you can see that the cherries are too large.