I'm a cherry ghost...

I'm an ocean

I'm all emotion
I'm a cherry ghost
-Wilco

Rainier cherries.
If you haven’t tried them – go out and get them.
I first discovered them the summer I lived in Washington, DC. I went to the Eastern Market (a fabulous farmer’s market with a flea market, an arts and crafts area, and the most gorgeous fresh fruits and veggies) and was mesmerized by these cherries that weren’t a deep red. They’re lighter in color with a sweet, yellow flesh. I ate pounds, upon pounds of the cherries. Until my lips were chapped from the tartness and the corners of my mouth itched from cherry juice.

When Rainier cherries become available every year, a little piece of cherry heaven is sent down from Mother Nature to me. My taste buds do a little dance and I over indulge my cherry passion. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the regular deep red Bing cherries, but I don’t like them as much. When I buy them, it’s to satisfy a hunger and a desire for seasonal fruit, tap dancing taste buds are not a part of the equation.

Maybe I love Rainier cherries so much because they remind me of my skin baking in the summer heat, or strolling through the farmer’s market in DC, or maybe it’s because winter is officially over and there’s fresh, seasonal fruit. Whatever the fact may be, I love these cherries. So I will spend $5 a pound on these suckers.

After I had eaten my way through about two pounds of cherries (single handedly) in less than a week. I decided I should try to make something with them. Hopefully, I wouldn’t eat them all before I figured out what to make.

I decided on a pie, a traditional forum for cherries. I decided I couldn’t just do the cherries because it would way too sweet. I also didn’t want to mess with a pie crust topping, I wanted to try more of a crumble topping. So I hunkered down and did a ton of online recipe research. I used a gluten free pie crust recommended by Shauna James Ahern, Gluten Free Girl, and mixed all these recipes to make the topping.

Cherry Ghost Pie
Pie Crust Ingredients: *Pie crust taken from Shauna James Ahern's Favorite GF Pie Crust
1 cup white rice flour
½ cup sorghum flour
½ cup potato starch
3 TBSP brown rice flour
3 tsp sugar
¼ tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 stick cold, unsalted butter
1 egg
2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
¼ cup ice water

Topping Ingredients:
¾ cup white rice four
½ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup unsalted butter
¼ tsp kosher salt
¼ cup old fashioned oats

Filling:
1 pound Rainier cherries (approximate)
4 nectarines
1 cup sugar
3 ½ TBSP Gluten Free Flour (I used the pre-mixed Bob’s Red Mill)
1 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of kosher salt

Pie Crust:
Mix the dry ingredients (including the sugar and cinnamon) together in a large bowl. Cut the butter into little pieces (about ½” thick) and drop into the dry ingredients. Using a butter knife, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it has a mealy consistency. (I used my hands a little bit to help speed the process along. You can also use the food processor to accomplish the desired texture.) Make a well in the dry ingredients. Drop the egg and apple cider vinegar into the well. Stir the egg and vinegar into the dry ingredients gently with a fork. Stirring from the center to the outer edges of the bowl. Once all the ingredients are incorporated, drizzle ice water into the mixture, a little at a time, stirring between each addition. Stir in enough water for the mixture to become dough. You do not want the dough to be too wet!

Lay out a piece of parchment paper and drop the dough onto it. Cover the dough with another piece of parchment paper (in other words a parchment paper sandwich). Gently roll out the dough until it’s thick and the size of a pie plate. Refrigerate the dough as long as possible. Ideally, an entire day/night, but I left mine in for an hour and a half and it came out great.
Remove the dough after it has refrigerated for a while and let it thaw out for about 10-15 minutes.

Roll the dough, between the two layers of parchment, until it’s the size of your pie pan, taking into account the extra area needed for around the sides. I also made the sides about a half inch taller than the pan itself. (I had cut up way too much fruit.) Remove the top layer of parchment, and invert the pie crust into the pie pan. Pinch/crinkle the sides so they fit the pan.

You do not need to pre-bake the pie crust.

Filling:
Pit the cherries and slice them in half. Pit and slice the nectarines. Mix them in a bowl with the sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt. Let the fruit soak in their own juices for a little while (about ten minutes).

On a side note: There are cherry pitters out there. I don’t have one and have never used one, however, it would have been nice. So I did some research on how to pit the cherries easily without a pitting tool. There were suggestions on using a paperclip and a bobby pin. I tried the bobby pin. It was more messy than helpful. I had cherry juice running down to my elbows. The cherries were ripe enough that I could just use my hands to break the cherries open and take the pits out.

Topping:
Thoroughly mix all the topping ingredients together. (AND that’s it – it’s so easy!)











Assembly:
Spoon the filling into the pie crust. Sprinkle the topping over the filling.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 375 degrees. Cover a jelly roll sheet with tin foil and place pie on top of the pan. (The pan is there to catch any over bubbling juices.) Bake the pie, on the bottom rack, for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, tent with foil, and continue to bake for about another hour. Check on it periodically, you don’t want the crust to burn. It’s ready when the filling starts to bubble and the topping in a golden brown.

Enjoy!

Things I’d do differently:
I think I let the cherries sit was too long because they were already pretty ripe. Because they were so ripe, I felt like their flavor was weak and got lost. Very muddy flavor-wise. While the nectarines retained a little snap to them and had quite a bit of flavor still.

My sister and brother both thought the cinnamon was a little over powering. I would half the amount of cinnamon in the filling so it wasn’t too much. This may have also been caused by the cherry blandness. I would also only do 3 TBSP of the gluten free flour, instead of 3 ½ TBSP. You could taste the flour a little and GF flour does not taste like regular flour.

For the topping, I would mix all the ingredients together EXCEPT the oats. I would sprinkle the oats on first, directly on top of the fruit, and then sprinkle the rest of the topping over the oats and fruit. I think the oats needed to absorb a little liquid and get a little more tender.

At the end of the day, the pie was good. Much better than my last attempt. I was a little disappointed in the cherry consistency, but it was all trial and error. I couldn’t find any specific Rainier cherry pies out there to use as a study. I would make it again, with a couple modifications. At the end of the day, there is no better fruit than the Rainier cherry. Just go out and try it.