Sweet Cherry Pie

Name: Sweet Cherry Pie
Yield: Serves 8 (Makes one 9-inch pie)
Ingredients: 2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 ounces; 354 grams), unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface; 1 teaspoon, table salt; 2 tablespoons, sugar; 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks), cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces; 1/2 cup, cold vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces; 1/4 cup, vodka, cold (see note); 1/4 cup, cold water; 2 , red plums, halved and pitted; 6 cups (about 2 pounds; 907 grams), pitted sweet cherries or 6 cups pitted frozen cherries, halved (see note); 1/2 cup, sugar (3 1/2 ounces; 99 grams); 1/8 teaspoon, table salt; 1 tablespoon, juice from 1 lemon; 2 teaspoons, bourbon (optional); 2 tablespoons, instant tapioca, ground (see note); 1/8 teaspoon, ground cinnamon (optional); 2 tablespoons, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces; 1 large, egg, lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water

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Appears in Cook's Illustrated July/August 2010, America's Test Kitchen TV

Desserts or Baked Goods

Fruit

Dessert Pies

Fruit Desserts

Cherry season is a mere blip on the summer-produce radar. For a juicy pie with the best fruity flavor, we’d have to look beyond the cherry tree.

SERVES8 (Makes one 9-inch pie)

TIME2 hours, plus 1 hour 25 minutes chilling, 20 minutes freezing, 2 hours cooling

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WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS

To tame the cherries’ sweetness and get them to break down to the proper, juicy texture in our sweet cherry pie recipe, we cut back on the amount of sugar we were using and added some pureed plums. We cut the sweet cherries in half and toss...

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