Recipe: Cherry Pie

I return after a long time, bearing pie! No photographs, yet again - I literally just finished consuming the last of it, and it didn't occur to me even once that I should gather some pictorial evidence of its existence. No matter, it will be appear again! Sometime.

I brought this pie to work for Pi Day, and it was declared the best of all the baked goods I have prepared so far. In the face of such high praise, who am I to withhold the recipe?

Cherry Pie
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated and various other sources

Ingredients
Crust
2 1/2 cups gluten-free flour blend
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbs raw sugar
225 g unsalted butter, cubed
2 eggs
Ice water

Filling
6 cups halved and pitted cherries (requires about 1 kg fresh cherries)
2 red plums, halved and pitted
1/2 cup raw sugar
Pinch salt
1 tbs freshly-squeezed lemon juice
2 tbs ground instant tapioca
Pinch ground cinnamon
2 tbs (25 g) unsalted butter, cut into 1 cm squares
1 large egg, beaten with 1 tsp water

To make the pie dough, mix flour, salt and sugar with a fork. Add butter; rub into the flour mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in eggs. Gradually add a little cold water until the dough comes together; it will be quite crumbly and slightly sticky. Split dough in half; flatten each half into a 10 cm disc. Wrap each disc in cling film and refrigerate for 45 minutes to up to 2 days.

Process plums and 1 cup of the cherries in a blender until smooth, about 1 minute. Strain the purée through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl, pressing down on with a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard any leftover solid material. Add remaining 5 cups of cherries, sugar, salt, lemon juice, tapioca and cinnamon. Mix well to combine. Allow to stand for 15 minutes.

Place a baking tray on the lowest rack of the oven; preheat to 205 degrees C. Dust 2 sheets of baking paper with corn starch. Remove one round of dough from the refrigerator and allow to warm slightly; roll out evenly between the sheets of baking paper to about 1/3 cm in thickness. Remove the baking paper and loosely wrap the dough around the rolling pin to lift it. Line a 23 cm pie or tart pan with the dough, leaving a 1-2 cm overhang. 

Fill pie pan with cherry filling. Scatter butter pieces evenly over the filling. Roll out second round of pie dough between 2 well-dusted sheets of baking paper, as before, and place on top of filling. Pinch the pastry edges together into a fluted pattern; trim the excess with a sharp knife or kitchen scissors. 

Brush the top of the pastry evenly with the egg wash. Using a sharp knife, cut 8 evenly-spaced slits in the top crust. Place pie in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Transfer pie onto the preheated baking tray in the oven. Bake at 205 degrees C for 30 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees C and bake for a further 30-40 minutes, until the crust is golden-brown and the juices are bubbling up. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack. Cool to room temperature, about 2-3 hours, until the filling is set. 

Notes

Frozen cherries (about 900 g) can be used instead. If fresh plums are unavailable, use 3-4 canned whole plums.

Gluten-free pastry crumbles easily and is difficult to work with. Plain flour can be used instead, but the crust will not be as flaky. There is a well-recommended pie dough which uses vodka, but I haven't tried it before.