For this cherry pie, I followed the recipe found at:
Because the cherries had been in the freezer, they were VERY JUICY when they thawed. First thing, I took all of the juice and, in a kettle over medium heat, I "reduced" the amount of total juice from 2 and 1/4 cups, down to 2/3 cup. (It didn't take all too long to do that.) Once the juice amount was down to around 2/3 cup, I dumped the pitted cherries in, and heated them until "just boiling"-- then I added the blended mixture of sugar (I added only 1 cup of sugar) and cornstarch to the hot cherries. Stirred until it was beginning to thicken. Dumped all into the bottom crust. Put the top crust on. I proceeded and then baked it according to directions on the website.
Below: I use a "cheater mold" for
making a sort of lattice top...
Some of the cherries I used were "early cherries"
(lighter in color); the others were "late
cherries" (darker in color). End result
was a pie with darker colored cherries.
Because the cherries were frozen, they are a
little darker than usual, and some are just
not "as round" as fresh cherries would
be in a ready-to-eat slice of pie like this.
(Some cherries looked more like a "flat tire",
but the regular taste was there.)
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The second pie for today, Blackberry, was made from the recipe
For this pie, I used "wild" blackberries that were frozen from over the summer. Because they WERE still frozen, when going into the pie crust, I followed the advice of the "submitter" and baked the pie for an extra 20-25 minutes, and it worked just fine. Your oven may be different, so check on the progress every 5-10 minutes after the originally suggested baking time.
As shown below, this top crust was also made with a "cheater" kind of pie crust mold-- this one, with the heart cutouts. Others I have can be seen under the category of "gadgets I like" in the index list along the right side of this blog.
Like one "reviewer" did, I also
added an extra cup of berries.
It is time to have a piece of pie!
