So, the bad thing about being a blogging hobbyist newbie is that I take foreeeeeeeevver between when I make the thing and when the recipe is up on the website. This is usually okay, as most of the ingredients I use are fairly available year-round, and I have a whole three months to get my inspired-by-summer/winter/spring/fall recipes up. But where this long lag time really bites me in the butt is when I’m dealing with something so fickle and short-lived as the ever elusive sour cherry. Here’s a sour cherry pie recipe! But…I’m pretty sure that sour cherry season is already over.

However, I am too excited about (finally!!) getting sour cherries that I can’t bear to wait until next year to share (who knows where this blog will be at next year!)! You see, I have been trying to get my hands on sour cherries for probably 8 years now. I’ve missed them every year – for reasons completely attributable to my utter lack of self-organization. When I lived in Boston, I never found them in the city, and I could never get it together to drive out to a farm and get them. Now that I live in Chicago, I’ve discovered that Traverse City, Michigan is the self-proclaimed cherry capital of the world, but that hasn’t helped with my organizational skills.

But when my friends George and Adrienne, amazing cherry- and Michigan-loving souls that they are, found me a bucket of sour cherries at a farmers market in the suburbs of Chicago, they became my favorite people and this finally became my year! I’m pretty sure I stood in the kitchen clutching the bucket of cherries with my greedy little fingers and cackling like an evil witch.

Sour cherries are smaller than their commonplace Bing counterparts, and are a vibrant, jewel-like ruby red. They are honestly one of the prettiest fruits I have ever seen. They are also, obviously, sour. But when combined with a mountain of sugar and flaky, buttery crust, they transform to a tart, lip-smacking, mouth-puckering pastry.

Despite my previous struggle with a new pie crust recipe, I tried a new recipe yet again. This one is from Stella Parks’s book Bravetart. It has a significantly higher butter-to-flour and water-to-flour ratio than any other pie crust I’ve ever tried (which just means that it doesn’t use as much flour). This obviously made me nervous right away, because I was afraid the crust would be too small (given the lower flour quantity) or too tough (given the higher water quantity). But I tried it anyway, and I’m glad I did! I did use a shallower pie plate than normal, both to be conservative with this new crust, and also because the quantity of cherries I had was juuuuuuust a tad bit shy of the required amount. But what I really loved about this crust was that it rolled up like a DREAM, with an absolute minimum amount of handling and kneading. Soft, pliable, and easy to manipulate, this was the least finicky and least crumbly crust I have ever worked with. But it still baked up flaky and tender, and intensely, distinctly buttery. It definitely made me more confident in the amount of water I could add to pie crust without it turning tough.

I don’t know if this is an all-purpose crust, exactly – it is very rich, and very decidedly buttery. I may not use it, for example, in a cream pie, where I’d want the cream filling to shine next to a more neutral crust (I’m in the camp that does not necessarily object to shortening in pie crust). However, for this cherry pie, it was perfect – out of the oven, the cherry juices had bubbled over on top of the crust, where they cooled and merged into a sort of syrupy, crispy cherry candy pastry. Fresh sour cherries may no longer be in season, but hey, I’m hoping that you can always get your hands on some frozen ones!

By the Way:

• I am stubbornly against one-purpose gadgets in the kitchen, and do not have a cherry pitter. Instead, I use a small paper clip – basically, you open up the paper clip, stick one looped end into the stem side of the cherry, fish around for the pit, and use the paper clip loop to pry the pit out. Here’s a video for how to do it. I’ve also done it with a small safety pin, holding the cap of the pin and pushing the coiled end into the cherry. Cons of the paper clip / safety pin: it’s messy, and probably takes a lot longer than the pitter. Pros: I don’t have a gadget lying around taunting me for only using it once every four years (I made a sweet cherry pie probably four years ago).
• The Bravetart cherry pie recipe is written for a mix of sweet and sour cherries. Since I only wanted to use sour cherries, I cut down the lemon juice by half.
• I did not have tapioca flour, and substituted 1 1/4 ounces of instant tapioca. The instant tapioca worked fine, but I would try tapioca flour the next time, as the tiny pearls of instant tapioca were a bit distracting.
• The Bravetart pie crust recipe calls for an entirely new way of mixing, kneading, shaping, and baking pie crust. My old habits die hard, however, and I couldn’t let go of all of the ways I’d previously made pie crust. Thus, my method is sort of an amalgamation of Stella Parks’s instructions and what I’ve always done (mostly learned from Smitten Kitchen). For the full Stella Parks experience, go here, and let me know how you do with exclusively her method!
• On a similar note, I found that with the Bravetart method of baking, the pie was slightly burnt on the bottom crust. I think this problem can be resolved by using a glass pie dish, as Stella Parks recommends and which I did not do. However, another method of baking, which has previously worked well for me with steel pie plates and seems to produce similar results, would be to bake at a higher temperature, then turn down the temperature halfway. I ended up doing this anyway, since I suspected my crust was burning, and so I’ve written the recipe with this modification.

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Sour Cherry Pie

Source: Bravetart, by Stella Parks

Ingredients

Pie Crust:

• 1 3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon (8 ounces) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 sticks (8 ounces) cold unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) ice cold water

Filling:

• 6 heaping cups (2 pounds) whole cherries or 5 cups (28 ounces) frozen cherries, thawed but not drained (I used all sour cherries; you can also use a combination of sour and sweet)
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice (Double if using combination of sour and sweet cherries)
• 1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon (1 1/2 ounces) tapioca flour (such as Bob's Red Mill) (Can substitute 1 1/4 ounces instant tapioca)
• 1 egg white, beaten lightly
• Sanding sugar, for decoration, optional

Instructions

For the Pie Crust:

• Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter and, using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour mixture until the butter pieces are the size of small peas. I tend to shake the bowl every so often, so that the larger butter pieces accumulate at the top and I can target them with the pastry blender.
• Drizzle the water over the butter and flour mixture. As you drizzle the water, "fluff" the flour mixture with a fork - this really helps distribute the water evenly. You can stop adding the water for a bit, fluff the dough mixture with the fork, then target dry patches with additional water. After you've added all the water, knead until the dough comes together in a ball. When you pick up the dough in your hand and squeeze, the dough should stay together and should not crumble.
• Transfer to a generously floured work surface, and roll into approximately a 10-by-15 inch sheet. Fold each 10-inch side toward the middle so that the edges meet, then close the packet like a book. Fold again top to bottom, and divide the block of dough in half. Wrap each half in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (preferably 2), or overnight. 
• Remove one piece of dough from the refrigerator - if necessary, let stand at room temperature until malleable. Roll dough on lightly floured work surface or between two large sheets of plastic wrap to about a 13-inch round. Transfer dough to a 9-inch pie plate by rolling dough around rolling pin and unrolling over the plate or by folding dough in quarters, then placing dough in pie plate and unfolding. Ease dough into plate by gently lifting dough edges with one hand and pressing down into the plate bottom and sides with your other hand. Leave dough that overhangs lip of plate in place, and refrigerate.

Filling and Assembly:

• Wash and pit fresh cherries; see note above if you do not have a cherry pitter. Combine the pitted cherries with the lemon juice, sugar, salt, and tapioca flour or instant tapioca. Toss gently with a flexible spatula to combine. Pour into the prepared pie shell and refrigerate while you roll out the top crust.
• Roll out second piece of dough to about an 11-inch round and place over filling. Gently press the top and bottom pieces of pie dough together, and fold and tuck the dough underneath itself so that the outer edge of crust is flush with the outer edge of pie plate. Flute the crust by pinching with your fingers or press with fork tines if desired, but I found that with such a buttery crust, the decorative crimping tended to melt away when baked. Cut several slits on dough top. Refrigerate the entire pie until firm and cold, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425°F.
• Take pie out of refrigerator and brush egg white onto top of crust. Sprinkle evenly with sanding sugar, if desired. Place pie on baking sheet and bake until top crust is golden, about 25 minutes. Rotate pie and reduce oven temperature to 375°F; continue baking until juices bubble and crust is deep golden brown, 30-35 minutes longer. If the crust is browning too quickly, loosely cover the pie with aluminum foil.

Okay – REAL TALK. Developing recipes is HARD. Developing recipes for desserts is REAL HARD. You can’t just throw things in a pan, always with garlic, salt to taste, and then add more hot sauce. You have to think about proportions and structure and gluten formation and temperature and consistency and timing and…my eyes are rolling in the back of my head already.

I think, as a fairly adept home-baker, you also have to deal with your own well-meaning ego. The ego that puffs you up with confidence and says that you can do no wrong, the ego that’s still reminding you about that lemon elderflower cake, the ego that also still remembers how your first apple pie ages and ages ago came out effortlessly picture perfect. That ego. I mean, I love her – she’s what keeps me feelin’ myself each and every day. But sometimes, sometimes… she leads me terribly, horribly astray.

And so, I’ve decided to dedicate a section of this website to my most memorable, most catastrophic, most stomach-dropping flubs and flops. No recipes here, just life lessons.

The first entry is this sad banana cream pie that I tried to make for a fourth of July BBQ this past weekend. I had dreams of recreating this banberry (that’s banana cream with strawberries) pie from Polly’s Pies. If you grew up in southern California, as I did, maybe you’ve heard of Polly’s – they’re a diner-cum-pie shop restaurant chain in southern California, similar to Marie Callender’s. I’ve never eaten there, but when I was little, my mom and I used to buy their banberry pie all the time. I loved how it paired vanilla-scented, pillowy banana cream with sweet, fresh strawberries, and topped it all with a mountain of whipped cream. Eventually, we stopped going – I think because the location closest to us closed, although I’m happy to see they seem to be still going strong! – and I hadn’t thought about that pie in ages. Until this BBQ invite came in, and I needed a new pie to try. I also hadn’t made anything to celebrate America’s birthday, and a red-and-white dessert seemed patriotic enough.

And then – everything went sideways. I tried a new pie crust recipe and, while I’m sure it would work great under different circumstances, I didn’t pay enough attention and it crumbled. A recipe for vanilla custard used in banana pudding may not have been the most structurally sound for banana cream pie. The grocery store was out of whipped cream so I bought a can of Reddi Whip, knowing it wouldn’t really work but just sort of choosing to ignore logic. And, oh yeah, the whole thing sat on a kitchen counter in the July heat for too long. When it rains, it really pours!

Needless to say, it did not turn out to be pie in any sort of recognizable capacity. Within a couple of hours, the strawberries were swimming in a melty mass of Reddi Whip and custard. I was too embarrassed to serve it, save to a few brave (and slightly sozzled) souls, and so slinked out with it at the end of the night and made James eat it all with me (banana cream crumble for breakfast for DAYS!). I’m happy to report that the flavor was still good, but the aesthetics left something to be desired.

And so, here are the lessons I’ve learned, from the pie-related to the life-related.

1. Pie crust gives me THE biggest headaches. Lord almighty, how a single pie crust can go wrong in so many different ways. I am not unaccustomed to pie crust failure, but usually my fails go the way of adding too much water. I’m well acquainted with tough and hard pie crust, and thus I’ve become obsessed with adding as little water as possible. I read that this King Arthur Flour pie crust recipe says to spray the water onto the pie crust with a spray bottle, and thought it was ingenious, because one of my problems is often that I can’t get the water to distribute evenly with the dry dough, and then I have to work the dough more to moisten it all, which also contributes to tough crust. Instead of reading the instructions all the way through, though, that pesky ego reared her self-assured head, and I became convinced that I could get away with the bare minimum of water they suggested. Not so. Even as my pie crust was crumbling under my rolling pin, I was muttering to myself – “It’ll come together. Flaky or die! Flaky or die! Flaky or die!!” Well, I got flaky – I got so-flaky-that-it-was-just-breaking-off-into-bits. I added way too little water, and my crust was breaking all over the place – while I was rolling it out, while I was trying to put it in the pie pan, while I was desperately trying to patch it. And when it came out, I could see that it had baked more in pieces than as a whole, coherent mass. So. I repeat – if your pie crust is crumbling and not staying together under pressure, it needs more water. I read this description recently, and thought it was useful – pick up your pie dough in your hand, and squeeze. If it’s ready, it should stay intact in your hand while you squeeze. I also read that when drizzling in the water, it helps to toss the flour and butter mixture around with a fork to more evenly moisten it, which I will also try next time.

2. All custards are not created equal. Don’t ask me why I didn’t just use a recipe for banana cream PIE. I just remember adoring the Smitten Kitchen banana pudding custard recipe that I had made before (for banana pudding). I didn’t really think about consistency, or structure, or anything else. Well, the SK custard for banana pudding has 6 egg yolks, 3.5 cups of milk, and 1/4 cup of cornstarch. I compared these proportions to a lot of recipes specifically for banana cream pie, including ones that used flour, ones that used cornstarch, ones that said you could use either, and ones that used cornstarch and flour. I won’t bore you with the details. But besides the fact that cornstarch has about twice the thickening power of flour, I also learned that all of these pie recipes had a much higher thickener-to-liquid ratio. Which makes sense. The pie recipes were for a sturdier, thicker custard that needed to hold its shape in a pie slice, not a silky, smooth custard to be ladled over Nilla wafers. <Insert forehead-smacking emoji here>

3. Avoid Reddi Whip. I should have just stopped when I couldn’t source whipped cream. But I was obsessed with creating that pillow of cream on Polly’s banberry pie, and literally thought it was a fine idea to pipe the Reddi Whip on the pie at home, snap a few pics (because taking pictures of a pie at a crowded BBQ would be crazy), scrape the Reddi Whip off after the pics, and call it a day. While this idea may have passed muster if everything else had gone okay, instead it just became the melted topping to my day of bad decisions. Besides the fact that it melts in literally two seconds, Reddi Whip just doesn’t taste very good. Avoid.

4. Cream pies should really be refrigerated before serving.

5. Life lesson: I think that starting this blog has been fun, but for me, it’s also increased the pressure I put on myself for everything I make to be good. I mean, I try hard, and I hate wasting ingredients, time, and money if something doesn’t turn out, but at the end of the day, food is food. The only things that it really needs to do are taste good and bring people together. Food is meant ultimately to be consumed. It doesn’t matter if it’s not Instagrammable, or if it’s not perfect, or even if it’s not how I originally envisioned it. This thing we call failure is not something to run away from, or to be ashamed of, or even failure, necessarily; it’s just something that happens in life, because life is messy. This thing we call failure should be something to be embraced, or at the very least, tolerated, as the Icelandic apparently do! To me, cooking and baking are, at its core, about creativity and expression. And in creativity, as in life, you have to be able to roll with the punches, laugh off your mistakes, and adapt to changing circumstances.

And so, I give you the most important lesson –

6. When life gives you broken pie crusts, melty vanilla custard, and liquid cream, just CALL IT A FREAKIN’ CRUMBLE.