The Cherry Pie Problem

My friend Jerry’s birthday was on November 20th and I wanted to make him a fancy cherry pie with a lattice top. I could wear a red and white checkered apron and deliver the pie in a picnic basket. Classic Americana!

Pie crust is simple enough to make; it’s just flour and butter and water. All the ingredients have to be cold and a food processor helps to chop the butter into the flour. When the crust rolls out, you want to see little patches of butter and the more patches there are, the flakier the crust will be. So the trick is to blend the butter into the flour, but not over do it.

I don’t have a food processor but found an old-fashioned pastry blender lurking in a drawer. I reasoned that if butter chilled in the refrigerator was good, then frozen butter would be even better. NOT! The butter wadded up on the pastry blender and the only purpose the blender then served was to greatly frustrate me. I wanted to use my hands but was afraid the butter would melt and the crust would be tough. I finally was able to shape the crust into a ball, pat it into a disk and put it in the freezer to “rest” for a while.

When I rolled out the crust it got lopsided and I couldn’t straighten it no matter how hard I tried. By now I had lost the patience necessary to carefully cut straight strips for the lattice top so I opted instead for a regular one.

And then there was the filling. The bag of cherries was quite large and I estimated that there would be plenty to fill a nine inch pie pan. But they cooked down to about 3 cups, not be enough to make the big fat pie I had envisioned. The cherries made a lot of juice so I removed the cherries and boiled down the liquid. I put the skimpy pie together and set it in the oven. Oh the aftermath! What a mess! There was flour everywhere – in my hair, on the floor and even on the cat.

I gathered up everything including some ice cream and put it all in a picnic basket. When I got to Jerry’s house, the pie was still warm. I enthusiastically pulled the pie out of the basket but accidently tipped it and the filling leaked all over the floor. I guess I had forgotten that the warm pie had not set up yet.

I still have one bag of cherries left, so guess what you will get for Christmas, Jerry!! And I may just use a box of Krusteaz pie crust mix and a smaller pie pan. Amen!