Door County Cherry Cranberry Rum Pie

For the past several years, Scott has made Door County Cherry Rum Pie for Thanksgiving, and they have been perfect.  This year was a different story. I had to buy the frozen cherries at a local grocery store, but I only bought one container, 28 oz, which I thought was enough.  It turned out that we didn't have enough cherries, so he added a cup of raw cranberries. Also, in previous years he had cooked the cherries with cornstarch  on the stove to thicken the filling, but this year, he didn't.   He just added sugar, cornstarch and rum  to the cherries and cranberries, and  put that filling in the pie shell.  It turns out that the cherries I bought were already sweetened, and he didn't realize that until he had already added the sugar. The pie baked beautifully and tasted so good, but the filling never got thick, so the fruit wouldn't stay in the crust, once it was cut. He even made cute little pastry cut outs of a cherry and cranberries. The pie was gorgeous, before it was cut:) The cherry cranberry filling was tart, but still sweet enough. but the consistency was not as good, too runny. Needless to say We ate anyway, with scoops of French Vanilla Ice Cream!  This festive pie would be beautiful addition to any Holiday table.

The moral of the story is that next time he makes this pie, he will cook the cherries and flour, and sugar, to thicken, on the stove, and stir in the raw cranberries at the end of cooking, to keep them whole, and then pour in the pie shell and bake.  Sometimes, Life is just not a bowl of cherries:)

Door County Cherry Cranberry Rum pie

 Make pie rust and refrigerate until ready to use.  He used Michelle at Brown Eyed Baker's Recipe for Perfect Pie Crust.

Filling

 32 oz or about 4 cups of tart cherries drained reserve  juice

 3/4 cup reserved Cherry juice

1/4 c dark rum

1 c sugar

1/3 c unsifted flour

1/8 tsp salt

2 Tbsp butter

1 c raw, whole cranberries

1 egg yolk (for egg wash)

What to do

1. Combine sugar, flour, and salt.  Stir into reserved cherry juice and rum. Bring to  a boil, stirring.

2. Reduce heat, and simmer for 5 min, till thickened. 

3.  Stir in butter and cranberries and refrigerate. 

4. Roll out half of pastry on well floured surface, and place in 9" pan. Trim pastry even with pan and fill bottom crust with cooled cherry pie filling

5. Roll out the other half of the pasty into an 12" circle

6.  Place pastry circle on top of your cherry filling. Cut a few large slits on the surface to allow steam to escape. Crimp edges as desired. Brush with egg wash.      

7. Bake 30-35 Min., until pastry nicely browned. Cool on wire rack.  Serve warm.  Enjoy!

I linked up my recipe to Brandie@The Country Cook's Weekend Potluck #44
 Stop by and say Hi to Brandie!