A classic sour cherry pie recipe updated with nutty, whole grain spelt flour.

My extended family suffered a terrible tragedy recently when my cousin-in-law, Mark, passed away suddenly at the age of 60. I had known Mark for over thirty-five years. He was, without a doubt, one of the kindest, most thoughtful men I have ever met and he was utterly devoted to his family and his community. This sudden loss has left Mark’s friends and family reeling.

Although cousin-in-law does not sound like a very close relation, my husband and I felt especially connected to Mark. When my cousin was planning her wedding to Mark, she asked me – all of 12 years old – to be a junior bridesmaid.

Fast-forward many years, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I spent a year living in the same city as my cousin and her husband, who by that time had several young kids. They loved having us nearby and invited us to hang out with them and their kids often. So it only made sense a few years later, when it was my turn to get married, that I asked my cousin’s daughter to be my flower girl.

Fast forward a few more years, my cousin’s oldest child attended college near us. His parents’ frequent visits gave us all another opportunity to see one other and deepen our connection at a different phase of our lives. And so it was that when we heard the terrible news about Mark’s sudden death, my husband and I felt a tremendous sense of loss and were absolutely heartbroken for my cousin and her three children.

The thing about Mark was that he was the nicest, most supportive guy you could ever hope to meet. Whatever you were doing, he wanted to know about it and he wanted to support you. If your kid was into sports, Mark would come to a game to watch him or her. If you dreamed of a career in the arts, Mark would tell you to go for it. If you had a favorite team, Mark would text you when your team did well – even if your team beat his team.

Mark and I shared a love of food and cooking and he always supported my culinary career. If he made one of my recipes, he would be sure to tell me about it. (People who write recipes love that, by the way.) When I had a book event near Mark and Amanda’s house, Mark insisted on picking me up from the train station – even though I could have easily taken a cab – and he and my cousin put me up for the night.

Earlier this month, I had asked Mark about his hometown, Pittsburgh, because I will be traveling there for a conference next year, and he sent me a ton of information. That’s how he was: generous, supportive, unfailingly kind, devoted to family. My husband and I both feel that we are better people for having known Mark and watched his example of how to be a partner, a father, and a friend. We will miss him terribly.

Because Mark loved to cook and was quite skilled in the kitchen, I wanted to post a recipe in his honor. I remembered that every year, Mark baked a sour cherry pie on his mother’s birthday because sour cherry was her favorite. I am lucky enough to live near some of the best sour cherry orchards in the country, so a recipe for a sour cherry pie is right up my alley. The only problem? It’s not exactly sour cherry season.

(By the way, sour cherry season is early summer like late June or early July.)

However, sour cherries freeze well – a blessing for a fruit that has such a short and fleeting season – and frozen pitted sour cherries are typically for sale at my farmers’ market right through October. So I was able to create a sour cherry pie in the middle of fall. If this recipe intrigues you – and you can’t wait until next summer to make it – I suggest you also seek out frozen sour cherries. Thawed and drained of their liquid, frozen sour cherries make an excellent pie.

When making a sour cherry pie, you don’t want to gild the lily, but rather let the sublime flavor of the cherries shine. So this recipe is pretty straightforward. I did make one small tweak to my usual crust recipe and replaced one cup of all-purpose flour with spelt flour. The nutty taste of the spelt is a nice complement to the cherries and adds a deeper golden color. Spelt, for those of you who don’t know, is simply an ancient form of wheat. It is lower in gluten than regular flour, which also helps keep the crust flaky. You should have no trouble finding spelt flour, such as the one made by Bob’s Red Mill, in the baking aisle of your supermarket.

As always, when working with pastry, keep everything as cold as possible and give the dough plenty of time to chill out in the fridge in between stages. I highly recommend making the pie dough the night before you plan to form and bake the pie.

For the cherry filling, I wanted to avoid soupiness – always an issue with watery fruit like cherries – so I did a lot of research on thickeners and ratios. My cherry filling recipe borrows pretty heavily from this one by Stella Parks, AKA Bravetart. The ratio of sugar to fruit to thickener – in this case, tapioca starch – is critical to achivieving beautiful, glossy slices of pie that hold together and don’t simply ooze out upon slicing. Bravetart’s recipe has almost no flavoring, but I add some cinnamon and vanilla for warmth and sweetness.

Baking a pie is always a labor of love. Many of us bake pies to tap into something larger than ourselves – long-held traditions and fond memories – or to feel connected to someone special. Perhaps you follow a pie recipe that was carefully passed down to you by your mother. Perhaps you roll out your pastry with your grandmother’s rolling pin.

In Mark’s case, he made his mother’s favorite sour cherry pie every year on her birthday as a tribute and as an expression of his commitment to always remember her. Today, I am picking up that torch and carrying it forward. I made a sour cherry pie as a tribute to Mark, one of the kindest men I have ever known.

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Spelt Sour Cherry Pie

Ingredients

Crust:
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup spelt flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 lb. (2 sticks) cold, unsalted European-style butter (at least 82% butterfat), cut into cubes, plus more for greasing the pan
• 1/2 cup ice water
• 1 TB red wine vinegar
Filling
• 1 TB sugar mixed with 1 tsp flour
• 1.75 lbs. (about 5 cups) pitted sour cherries (if frozen, thawed and drained)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 TB lemon juice
• 1/3 cup tapioca starch
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Topping
• 1 TB cream
• 1 TB whole milk
• Demerara or Turbinado sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

1. Combine the flours, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to mix. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
2. Combine the ice water and vinegar and add six tablespoons of the liquid to the ingredients in the food processor. Pulse several times until combined. Pinch a bit of the dough to see if it holds together. If it is still too dry, add more of the liquid, one tablespoon at a time, until it holds together.
3. Remove the dough to a bowl or a well-floured board. Knead the dough until it forms a ball. Divide the dough into two and wrap each half well in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator for at least a half-hour but preferably overnight.
4. Once the dough is well-chilled, remove one of the balls of dough from the refrigerator. (If the dough was chilled for longer than thirty minutes, allow it to soften for ten minutes before rolling it out.) Prior to rolling out the dough, strike it with your rolling pin to flatten it further.
5. Liberally dust a pastry board or mat and a rolling pin with flour. Roll the dough out, rotating it and turning it frequently and adding more flour as necessary to keep it from sticking, until it is larger than the pie plate and between ¼ and ⅛ of an inch thick. Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie plate with melted or softened butter.
6. Carefully center the pie dough in the plate and press it into the bottom and sides. Trim or fold over any excess dough around the edges.
7. Sprinkle sugar-flour mixture over the inside of the bottom crust to prevent it from getting soggy. Place pie pan in refrigerator while you prepare the rest of the filling.
8. To make the filling, combine the cherries, sugar, lemon juice, tapioca starch, salt, vanilla paste or extract and cinnamon in a bowl and stir to combine.
9. Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust and refrigerate while you prepare the top crust.
10. Roll out the second ball of dough in the same manner as the first. To create a lattice top, cut even strips of dough using a paring knife or fluted pastry wheel. Lay out strips of dough horizontally, using the shorter strips on the edges and the longest strips for the middle, on top of the pie filling.
11. Fold back every other strip and lay down one vertical strip of dough in the middle. Unfold the horizontal strips. (The vertical strip should now be woven over and under the horizontal strips.)
12. Fold back the strips you did not fold the first time and lay down a second vertical strip of dough. Unfold. The second vertical strip should now be woven and under the opposite horizontals strips. Repeat with remaining strips of dough working from the center of the pie out to create a woven lattice.
13. Trim any excess that hangs over the edge and then crimp together the edges of the bottom and top crusts. Preheat oven to 400 and refrigerate pie for at least 30 minutes while oven preheats.
14. Mix together the cream and milk. Brush top crust with the cream mixture to create a glossy finish and sprinkle with coarse sugar.
15. Bake pie at 400 for 50-60 minutes until crust is golden brown and the filling bubbling. Keep an eye on the pie edges during baking and cover then with foil or a pie shield if it they start to darken or scorch.
16. Allow pie to cool completely before slicing to avoid soupy slices. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

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