Lattice Crust Pie Made with Fresh Bing and Rainier Cherries

July is one of my favorite months of the year. Summer fruits make me sing songs and bake pies on a daily basis. Peaches, berries and cherries accompany long, sunny days where people are in good moods, only made sweeter by pies, cobblers and crisps. July is the month I’m happy to turn my oven on every day to try to discover another way to turn these fruits into something beautiful to eat. This is not your ordinary or typical cherry pie, as I used a mix of bing and Rainier cherries, baked at their optimal eating point, leaving them whole (seeded), and still juicy and delicious.

I was inspired to make this kind of pie from the beautiful cookbook that is all about fruit. Fruitful, Four Seasons of Fresh Fruit Recipes is the best book on fruit I’ve ever seen. I’ve had the book for a few months, and I’ve been waiting for July to bake from it. I’m also giving away a copy (details below).

Are you as fascinated by the science of food as I am? Although I’m a creative type, I need to know about the food, the who, what, when, where, why, how of it. I’m not a big bang theory type, but if it was possible, I would enjoy a Sheldon type friend who could tell me more than I ever wanted to know about food.

Fruitful does this. It satisfies my love of food and beauty at the same time. The pictures are soulful and inviting. Each fruit gets it’s own informative page followed by mouth watering recipes (many contributed by names you would know such as Daniel Boulard).

The cookbook itself blossoms from Red Jacket Orchards, and continues the Nickolson family heritage. Sweet and savory, season by season, you will fall in love with the recipes and the heart of this book. From grilled skirt steak with blackberry serrano glaze to pear and pumpkin soup, expect the unexpected along with jams, jellies and fruit based cocktails.

For instance, I always wanted to know why the Rainier cherry was so expensive, which always made me want it a bit more. I put Rainier cherries in that category of Oprah Winfrey food. “Well if I was Oprah, I’d buy $100 balsamic vinegar and Rainier cherries all time.” I tend to think like that. I’m not Oprah and Rainier cherries are quite a luxury at $8 a pound and I was lucky enough to find them on sale for $4. I snapped them up and remembered the Fruitful book had a lovely lattice topped cherry pie made with a variety of cherries, including Rainier.

The Big Bang of Bing and Rainier Cherries

“So Sheldon, why are Rainier cherries are so expensive?”

If asked, he would give you an explosive and lengthy, yet interesting answer regarding climate, pruning, wind factor and the picker with just the right set of hands. They take quite a bit of finesse to cultivate, pick and attain that perfect amount of sweetness. A cross between a bing and a van cherry, Rainier cherries are thin skinned, golden, and extra sweet. While the bing cherry is picked quickly and processed easily, the Rainier cherry must be picked by the stem and placed, not dropped into a basket due to their mandated brix value.

There is a thing called a brix value of sweetness, usually used for wine, honey, and fruit juice. Washington state requires Rainiers to reach a minimum of 17 brix before they can be picked. To give perspective, peaches are a 13 brix. Getting there is difficult, as the temperature has to be perfect. Rainiers are temperamental, can bruise easily or break through the skin before that level of sweetness arrives.

Rainier cherries are almost too much of a luxury to bake into a pie, but in this case, the cherries remain whole and juicy.

This isn’t the typical cherry pie made with sour cherries. This is more pastry like, a little more grown up, and surprisingly the cherry pie for those rare birds who don’t like cherry pie.

The Lattice crust enables you to see the different colors and makes this a beautiful presentation. This pie can be made as individual tarts, served with vanilla ice cream for a fabulous and elegant summer dinner party!

Print Recipe

5 from 8 votes

Rainier Cherry Pie with Lattice Crust

A mix of Bing and Rainier Cherries and a lattice crust for a perfect summer pie adapted from Fruitful by Brian Nickolson and Sarah Huck.

Prep Time1 hour hr

Cook Time50 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 50 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: 6

Author: Angela Roberts

Ingredients

1 Pie Crust Recipe

• 1 pound bing cherries
• 1 pound Rainier cherries
• 3/4 cup sugar
• juice of half of lemon
• 2 tablespoons instant tapioca original recipe uses cornstarch
• milk or cream for brushing on crush original recipe uses an egg wash

Instructions

• Whisk flour, sugar, salt together. Add cold butter that has been cut into small pieces. Use a pastry cutter or food processor to incorporate butter until it is in small pea sized pieces. Add water, slowly.
• Form into a dough ball, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for one hour.
• Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Pie Filling

• Seed all cherries and place in a bowl.
• Add in tapioca or cornstarch, sugar, salt, lemon juice and vanilla. Allow to stand for 15 minutes. Take out pie dough and allow that to stand for 10 minutes until warm enough to roll out.
• Divide in half. Roll out half and place into a pie pan.
• Put in cherries.
• Use the remaining pie dough to roll and cut long and short strips to form a lattice crust.
• Bake at 425 for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown.

Notes

There is a recipe for a pie crust, very similar to my own. I used my own, because I am so familiar with it and it works for me. The original recipe uses three types of cherries. I only used two.

Please follow me on instagram. If you make this recipe,  please tag me #spinachtiger.

If you love this recipe, please give it five stars. It means a lot. xoxo

The Give Away Open to USA & Canada

Of all my cookbook giveaways, this one is closest to my heart. Do please leave me a comment telling me your favorite fruit, how you like to eat it.
The Give Away Open to USA & Canada

Of all my cookbook giveaways, this one is closest to my heart. Do please leave me a comment telling me your favorite fruit, how you like to eat it.

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