Go to the Recipe: Quintessential Americana Cherry Pie
I have 10lbs sour cherries in my freezer, and was gonna make a cherry pie this weekend anyways. So now I’ll make this!
Question re: thickening. I’m loathe to buy more thickeners (I already have too many). I have tapioca, arrowroot, ultratex 8, ultrasperse 3, and probably others. Recommendation if wanting to make one of these work?
Regarding rack positioning for crispier bottoms: what about baking on a stone(not steel) and reducing the temp to 200C?
Given that sour cherries vary a lot, is there any specific Brix and pH to target when balancing the filling with citric acid and sugar?
The baking stone sounds like a great idea. I would keep the baking temperatures the same and still baking on the bottom rack.
This comes down to personal taste. The recipe started off with minimal acid. We cranked the acid up to make the cherries more sour. Typical sour cherries are 16-22 Brix and contain natural citric acid. The variance is minimal and the sugar can be increased or reduced. As far as target Brix for the filling in general 30-32 may be ideal. The pH is a gamble from fruit to fruit as nature is unpredictable so, again it’s to personal taste and we do not have a recommended pH level. Nick loves the sour side of things so we cranked it up with malic acid to increase the pucker. All tongues will have different sensations.
I would try the arrowroot as similar to the corn starch ratio for this recipe.
I have a question about a dairy free approach. I am typically using Earth Balance brand in my substitutions that require some room temperature butter (e.g. brioche bread). The pie crust is different since the butter has to be cold, and the vegan butter tends to be softer at the refrigerator temperature. What would you recommend I should do?
Hello Oleg, The EB butter will work as an equal sub. You may want to reduce the ice water in the dough to help. You can also freeze the butter to help it firm when mixing the pie dough to help with handling. It should bake the same. Another option is to sub in some harder tropical fats like coconut or red palm oil that are very firm when cold. A little more info is here. https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-guide-to-pie-dough-the-ingredients
At some point you might want to do a write-up on the difference between ClearJel and ClearJel Instant. They're not interchangeable. The good news is that they both apparently have a shelf life of decades.
Also, I regularly keep a large clay pizza stone on a third rack at the bottom of my oven to help address heat fluctuations in my oven. When I want to bake a pie, I move it to an upper shelf and preheat it with the oven. The solid push of steady heat makes for a dryer bottom crust. And, if the pie boils over, it's caught by the stone. The stone can be washed when cool -- or go through the oven-cleaning cycle.
Any changes you could recommend when using European butter?
I got my hands on some bleached flour but American butter is unavailable here.
We use a European style butter for all of our development so no changes needed. We use Plugra if you want to look it up and see if it is the same milk fat percentages as the one you are using.
It’s sour cherry season and I have fresh cherries from the green market. Is there a way to use them without freezing first?
It will work out great, just get them as cold as possible so that it will cool down faster when added to the filling.
Is it recommended to make this a day in advance and warm prior to serving?
I've never criticized ChefSteps before, and I'm sorry, guys, but any pie that craps out its filling when cut is, to me, a failed pie recipe. There are a number of things that could have been employed to make a clean-cutting pie that doesn't taste like starchy paste, but like vibrant and tangy cherries. If you still think this recipe is a "win," show everyone what the last slice looked like after plating -- with virtually zero filling intact. This recipe is a cobbler that once dreamed of being a pie for a few brief moments.
Hi there. I was wondering if I could freeze this pie. Would this best be frozen before or after baking? Or could I just put it in the refrigerator for a few days if freezing doesn’t work?
Ahhhh, sour cherry pie. My absolute favourite pie of all. So happy to see you using ClearJel. It makes for a shiny, clear, and silky smooth, rather than a cloying filling. I’ve been using it for years.
I'm curious - in this recipe ClearJel is recommended and the Super Apple Pie uses Gellan F for the filling. Is there any guidance on as to when using ClearJel vs Gellan F in a recipe?
If you must freeze it, then after baking for sure. It will keep for a week in the fridge.
Should be great at room temperature and warming is up to you. You can make this a few days in advance but is best eaten day one and two. If you need to keep any longer than a chill in the fridge will keep it fresh.
They both make silky, creamy, clear gels. Clear gel is easier to work with and less process steps. Gellan F will be more resistant to syneresis and is more sensitive to pH and dialing in the thickness of the gel.
Thank you
Could I substitute dried sour cherries for frozen? If so, would the results suffer? I assume I can hydrate the dried cherries with the cherry juice?
Hello Alan, dried tart/sour cherries are usually sweetened and would affect the sugar ratio. You can dial back the sugar and hydrate the cherries in juice for sure but water may be the best bet. The trick here is to know what amount of sugar is added to the dry cherries, which could vary from producer to producer. For best results stick with fresh or frozen cherries and if you want to boost the cherry add the dried cherries as mentioned above in the tip.
Can I use agar agar in place of the clear gel?
Quick thank you to the editorial team for the summarizing the changes on this updated recipe. It is nice see and offers some context that has been missing in other 'updated' recipes.
It's not a direct swap. Low-acyl gellan would be the hydrocolloid to use here but would require a major recipe change. Agar is thermo-reversable and will turn liquid again when heated. Gellan gums are thermo-irreversable.
Would you recommend this crust for other fruit pies or is it more suited to this going filling?
The measured volume of Clear Jel in this recipe needs a second look. Recipe calls out 75g. This couldn’t be correct. Did the final edit miss the decimal? Manufacturer recommends 4 Tbs/Qt. I’m thinking that the correct measure for Clear Jel would be somewhere closer to 7 grams.
The recipe is correct. 7 grams wouldn't do much here for the amount of filling. This is a tested recipe and manufacturer is just a recommendation. 1 Tablespoon weighs 9.5 g and we are at almost 2 quarts of filling.
At 75 g of Clear Jel, the filling was chalky and had a very undercooked taste and texture. No amount of time on the stove was able to correct the condition. We added more juice until the consistency showed more like the example in your video. Not sure what else could have been wrong.
The actual liquid content is about 200g when the cherry juice and lemon juice are combined. That's less than a cup of actual liquid. 75g of starch is way too much for that volume of liquid.
This is not the actual liquid amount. The frozen cherries, if allowed to thaw contain a large amount of liquid and when not bound up with starch creates a runny filling when baked. We test our recipes well and sometimes we may not follow the standard recommendations although I assure you that we are close to the standard amount of clear gel to thicken the pie filling once baked. Again our process may stray from the normal but this is what makes the recipe unique and consistent. Curious if you followed through and baked the pie and then assessed filling? You can add double the amount of cherry juice for a looser filling or reduce the clear gel to 60 g but no less. Also allowing the pie to fully cool to make the perfect gel is key for best slices. I will say that if the mixture is not stirred and cooked properly it will result in a more cloudy mixture but will turn clear once baked.
Was it chalky after the pie baked or just the juice gel?
Yes, the crust can stand alone even blind baked for a cream pie. Good pie dough, made well, is great in most applications, from hand pies, fry pies, cream pies, baked fruit pies.
A question about the filling. Following the recipe (330g dry & 185g liquid) my filling seized up immediately when applying a little heat. It looked nothing like the video with a thin slurry that cooked a bit to thicken. Anyone else find this issue? I ended up adding about 100g more liquid to get it at least to the point I could pour over the cherries and combine. One variation I don’t think would matter is I substituted 75g of Monkfruit sweetener for same g sugar keeping the total ‘sugar’ the same as in the recipe. Thoughts?
I had the same issue. The filling was very gluey and not at all what the video looks like. I have the same clearjel brand that's linked in the recipe.
Interesting. The clear jel should remain thin until boiled and should not seize up on you. You are using clear jel and not instant clear jel?
To confirm, you are not using instant clear jel. That brand makes both.
If using autopilot with the joule oven do you not need to make the foil ring to protect the crust?
No foil needed with Joule oven and autopilot. That program rocks for pies.
I have the same problem and i have double checked that I am not using instant clear jel. I had to add about 4 x the amount of liquid than is in the recipe to get it even close to what is shown in the video.
I've had great success using this recipe as written in a conventional oven. I'm getting an Air Fryer Pro and looked up the recipe in the Breville app, and I am very confused. The recipe there, under the same name and credited to ChefSteps differs significantly: less filling and using cornstarch rather than ClearJel. The cook timings and temperatures are also different - 350F convection rather than 450F conventional here, and a total cook time of 1h 15m vs 1h 40m -1h 50m here. Are these differences because of the changes in pie size, or something else? And more generally how does one transfer cook time to the countertop oven? Standard practice seems to be subtracting 25F when going from conventional to convection, but that is not what is happened here.
I had to add another 200g of cherry juice to get the filling to the consistency seen in the video, using the amounts in the recipe I got a gel mass that seized around my whisk when heating it up. Looking at the comments people brought up that it could be that someone like me is using instant clear jel but I'm definitely using cook type clear jel. What could be causing this issue?
would this work for a blueberry pie if I swapped the juice and fruit for blueberries? I'm assuming yes
