A couple of years ago I made my first pie. It was apple, made from the nasty apples from the tree in the back yard. (‘Nasty’, as in they’re mushy, small, and not very sweet.) The results were acceptable. Pretty tasty, considering the main ingredient. My next pie was pecan – my favourite. I made a cherry pie using canned pie filling from the supermarket. Meh.
The thing is, I do like cherry pie. Since I don’t have a pitter and don’t want to spend the time, is there a particular brand of cherry pie filling that’s better than others? Is there a way of ‘doctoring’ canned cherry pie filling to make it really good?
I’m thinking of trying a pumpkin pie this year. Maybe even a sweet potato pie. Generally speaking, I’m not into cream pies. I mean, I like them well enough; but I prefer fruit. Ditto citrus pies (lime, lemon).
I’m sure I saw frozen pitted pie cherries at the supermarket.
FWIW, if you find fresh sour cherries, pitters are cheap, and you can always pit them while you watch TV. The canned fillings are all overly gummy and overcooked. It doesn’t seem like making a pie to just pour a can of pre-made pie filling into a crust.
The best pumpkin pie I’ve had is the standard recipe on a can of Libby’s, but with 1/2 & 1/2 instead of evaporated milk. It’s not a huge difference in calories, but it tastes 100x better.
Sour Cream Peach Pie is good. My sister makes the Nora Ephron version from the book Heartburn.
The Mrs. Smith’s Natural Juice Pies (frozen) are about the best frozen pie on the market and shockingly good, all things considered.
I LOVE making pies and if you want to get into it, I can’t recommend Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Pie and Pastry Bible highly enough. It talks at length about the science of pie crusts as well as troubleshooting problems. Frigg’n brilliant, actually and one of the few cookbooks from my 200+ book collection I look at more than once a year.
The Mrs. Smith’s Natural Juice Pies (frozen) are about the best frozen pie on the market and shockingly good, all things considered.
I LOVE making pies and if you want to get into it, I can’t recommend Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Pie and Pastry Bible highly enough. It talks at length about the science of pie crusts as well as troubleshooting problems. Frigg’n brilliant, actually and one of the few cookbooks from my 200+ book collection I look at more than once a year.
I finally got my pie crusts to where I like them by using the recipe in the ubiquitous Better Homes and Gardens (red and white checkerboard tablecloth cover) cookbook from the 50’s. The only difference is that for the shortening, I freeze butter flavored Crisco and add it to the dry ingredients by shredding it in a coarse, manual cheese grater. This gets the shortening chunks the right size, gets them in ther fast, and reduces the amount of mixing needed. Just add a little ice water as you go and damn tasty pie crust.
When I was growing up, we had dozens of cherry trees with those sour little cherries on them. Man, those make the best cherry pie. Some sort of blight wiped the trees out years ago, I sure miss that particular pie.
Yes, BH&G is my go-to-crust recipe also. I use 1/3 real butter and 2/3 lard. Lard is much better tasting to me than Crisco. But I think I’d try that butter flavored Crisco. I also add 1/4 cup white sugar to the flour. A friend said my pie tastes like candy!
In fact I’m some proud of my pies and still have my county fair blue ribbon on the refrigerator. Nearly broke my arm patting myself on my back.
Johnny, you can buy canned sour cherries. A sprinkle of almond extract goes nice with the cherry flavor. Be sure to top the filling with a couple little pats of butter for a nice rich pie.
When I was living in Indonesia during the 1970s, I was in a Home Economics class and had to make a pie. I ended up making a mango pie using a recipe for apple pie. It was freaking awesome, and I made a second one for Thanksgiving that year. At the time, the only apples we could get over there were Fuji apples (I think), and they were sort of mushy, not very tasty, and almost prohibitively expensive. The mangoes were cheap, plentiful, and juicy.
I think mangoes are somewhere around a dollar each, so it might be a little expensive, but definitely worth trying.
What you want is a can (actually two cans) of pitted sour pie cherries, not cherry pie filling. It may take some work to find them - not all stores stock this item, and those that do charge a pretty penny for them.
You can also find quick frozen pie cherries in bulk - Agway used to sell five- or thirty-pound containers.
There is a brand of canned cherries called “Oregon Fruit” that is excellent. The canned “pie filling” is a gloppy, goopy, oversweetened mess. If your stores don’t carry Oregon Fruit, you can actually order it on Amazon! They have a recipe inside the label. I add a little bit of almond extract, sugar and either uncooked tapioca or just enough cornstarch to thicken somewhat. The filling should be mostly fruit with just barely enough thickening to make it hold together.
I made a great pink lemonade pie that I got from a 50’s cook book. It opened my mind about new pie possibilites. They effin’ ROCKED pies back in the day.
Get a pitter – Mr. Boozilu thought I was crazy for buying one but devoured the pie. If you like fruit pies, try a triple berry pie with raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Three-Berry-Pie/Detail.aspx.
This summer I really got into some Pineapple pie. I used fresh pineapple when they were on sale for a dollar each, but you can use canned, too. They’re so good!
I like “Oregon Fruit” too, but the real trick is to get a bag of the dried tart cherries from Trader Joe’s and soak them in brandy. Cut them in half to make sure they are really seedless. Add (just the cherries, drink the brandy) to pie filling with cinnamon. Grated granny smith apple also makes great thickener.
This is a good time of year to make a peach or blueberry pie. Blueberry is the easiest - no peeling or pitting or chopping required. And it makes a killer pie! Be sure to use tapioca as the thickener - you’ll get a clear, delicate glaze rather than a gravylike sauce, which is what happens when you use flour.
Thanks for the tips so far. I’m not into Pie Mode yet (I’ll probably wait until the end of October, or November), but I’ll definitely put the tips to use. I especially like the idea of freezing the shortening and grating it with the cheese grater.
My paternal grandmother used to make sour cream-raisin pudding, which was also used as pie filling. Egad, I wish I hadn’t lost the recipe!
I ordered a new copy from an amazon seller (at half the price of the book on the link).
I’m not a huge fan of peach pie. Peach cobbler, though…
