Cherry Pie Recipe ~ Fresh and Delicious!

This cherry pie recipe is easy to make. Best of all, you can make it palm oil free. Most all prepared pies will contain palm oil in the crust. Homemade pies and desserts are the best!

Cherry pie, it’s the all American dessert. This cherry pie recipe uses fresh or frozen cherries instead of canned. It also uses a store-bought crust to save on time, but you can always make your own.

And if latticework top crusts aren’t your thing, that’s okay too. You can use a solid top. Just make sure you include several slits to vent.

Cherry Pie Recipe

Though it seems like a summer dessert, you can make cherry pie with frozen cherries so you can enjoy it all year. Also, frozen cherries are often less expensive than fresh. They’re seasonal, like most all produce. 

If you are using fresh, here’s a tip about pitting fresh cherries. Use a straw (it needs to be pretty sturdy to pierce the flesh of the cherries — a stainless steel straw is ideal) and place it at the end of the cherry where the stem would be. Push the straw through the cherry and it will push the pit right out. It makes fast work of pitting fresh cherries and isn’t that difficult to get the hand of.

Cherry Pie Ingredients

• 4 cups fresh cherries (tart is best), fresh pitted or frozen pitted
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon pure almond extract
• 1 ¼ cups white sugar
• ⅓ cup cornstarch
• ⅓ cup cherry juice – If you are using frozen, you can likely get the juice from the bag. Otherwise, blend ½ cup of cherries. You can also buy cherry juice.
• Pie crust – Ready-made or make your own pie crust

Note: If you don’t have almond extract or avoid almonds, you can substitute with pure vanilla extract. 

Prep: 22 minutes 

Bake time: 60 minutes

Makes 8 servings

How to Make Cherry Pie

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, combine the cherries, cinnamon, nutmeg, and almond extract. Mix well and set aside.
3. In a large saucepan, over medium heat, combine the sugar and cornstarch. Add the cherry juice a little at a time and stir until smooth.
4. Increase heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil. Continue to stir and cook about 2 minutes, until the mixture thickens.
5. Remove from heat and fold in the spiced cherries. Set aside.
6. Prepare your pie crust on your pie plate. Add the filling to the pie. Cut strips of the remaining dough to create a latticework top. If you prefer, you can use a solid pie crust top and make slits are several points. Trim the edges, seal and flute them. Brush the entire top with egg wash if desired. 
7. Bake cherry pie for 10 minutes at 425 degrees F.
8. Lower heat to 375 degrees F and continue baking for about 45 to 50 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

You can use fresh cherries or frozen cherries to make homemade cherry pie

Homemade Pie

I’ll include directions for homemade pie crust soon. I make pie crust from scratch to be sure to avoid palm oil. My son has a palm oil allergy and palm oil intolerance. Because of this, we avoid it completely in our house. This means we make crust with butter instead of shortening.

Most all pies and desserts that are premade at stores contain palm oil ingredients. This means I’ve learned to bake all of our desserts from scratch. Learn more about palm oil free desserts and some of our favorites. 

Cherry pie is easy to make and uses ingredients we frequently have on hand. One of our favorite snacks is eating frozen cherries so we always have at least one bag in the freezer. (We also love snacking on sliced frozen bananas!)

Also, buying frozen cherries is usually more affordable than fresh where we live. This means we can make cherry filling easily and don’t need to resort to used canned cherry filling. This cherry pie filling recipe is easy. You can use it for all sorts of desserts. Many of the other ingredients are pantry staples. 

Incorporating fruits into desserts makes them just a smidge healthier, right? See my other fruit dessert recipes which are very easy to make, including blackberry cobbler, old-fashioned peach cobbler, and strawberry compote. 

A favorite summer treat, cherry pie is an iconic American dessert. Serve it up at your next barbeque or bring it along for a picnic. It’s festive for July 4th and really, anytime. Love all things cherry? Try making homemade cherry preserves. 

Do you and your family love pies? You can make pies with nuts such as this walnut pie for a protein packed treat. 

I’d love to hear from you. If you make this cherry pie recipe, please leave a note in the Comments, and let me know how it tasted. Thank you for being interested in baking at home. Store-bought pies contain lots of added ingredients that you won’t miss when you bake homemade.

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Cherry Pie Recipe

This fresh cherry pie recipe calls for fresh cherries or frozen cherries. There's no need to use canned when the real thing tastes so much better. This is easy to make!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword cherry pie, cherry pie recipe, homemade cherry pie, how to make cherry pie

Prep Time 22 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Servings 8

Ingredients

• 4 cups fresh cherries tart is best, fresh or frozen pitted
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon almond extract
• 1 ¼ cups white sugar
• ⅓ cup cornstarch
• ⅓ cup cherry juice
• pie crust (ready-made or make your own pie crust)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
• In a large bowl, combine the pitted cherries, cinnamon, nutmeg, and almond extract. Mix well. Set aside.
• Over medium heat, combine the sugar and cornstarch in a large saucepan. Add the cherry juice a little at a time. Stir until smooth.
• Increase heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil. Continue to stir and cook about 2 minutes, until it becomes thick.
• Remove from heat and fold in the spiced cherries. Set aside.
• Prepare pie crust on your pie plate. Add the filling to the pie. Cut strips of the remaining dough to create a latticework top. Or, if you prefer, you can use the solid pie crust top. Make slits in several points.
• Trim the edges, seal and flute them.
• Bake cherry pie for 10 minutes at 425 degrees F.
• Lower heat to 375 degrees F and continue baking for about 45 to 50 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

Notes

You can brush the top of the pie crust with egg wash before baking if you want a glossy finish.