Cherry pie is just about the easiest fruit pie to make. Sour cherries--the kind you need for pie--are rarely available fresh or frozen, so the canned variety usually is the only option for most cooks. Not only do canned cherries make good pies, but there's also no peeling, coring, seeding, pitting or slicing the fruit. Just drain, dump, sweeten, flavor and thicken, and you're in business.
For an exceptional pie: Make a thickening paste by simmering some of the cherry juice reserved from the can with a little sugar and starch. This way, you can check the filling's thickness before it's enclosed in pastry, and the filling won't turn the bottom crust soggy during baking. I like potato starch, because it thickens nicely while leaving the juices soft and clear. You'll find potato starch in the kosher section of most grocery stores (Manischewitz is one brand). Cornstarch also works.
To reinforce a golden bottom crust and to keep the fluting from burning: Bake the pie on the bottom oven rack on a pizza stone or four to six unglazed quarry tiles. (I bought 9-by-9-inch tiles at my local home improvement center for about $1 each.) Once the pie edges are golden brown, put foil around the fluting, leaving the center crust exposed for further browning.
Finally, to give the pie a gorgeous, glistening sheen: Pull it from the oven halfway through baking, brush the top with a beaten egg white, and sprinkle it with a little sugar.
Copyright 2004 USA Weekend and columnist Pam Anderson. All rights reserved.
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