how to make a cherry pie {the best way}

This summer on our trip to Door County, we picked 9 quarts of fresh, tart cherries. Baking a cherry pie soon became a subject of much thought. It couldn't be that hard, right?

STEP 1
Pick the freshest, reddest, ripest cherries possible. Preferably with the one you love.

STEP 2
Wash, stem, pit, and freeze cherries with sugar topping them.

STEP 3
Follow a standard cherry pie recipe. (After baking two cherry pies, I found that I prefer using tapioca to flour as a thickening agent.) For a simple way to dress up your pie, cut your top crust* into thin strips and create a lattice top.

STEP 4
Bake and serve warm with ice cream. Relish the sweet success of having baked the freshest, tastiest and BEST cherry pie around!


*QUICK TIP
A good friends' mom is the queen of pie baking. On a recent visit, she whispered to me her secret to perfect pie crusts... her quiet confession? Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crust. Try it, but don't tell a soul. No one will ever guess that it's NOT HOME BAKED!