Very Cherry Pie!

Yum! For this pie, I used an almond crust to compliment the cherry filling. Almond crust goes well with any pie, and it's fun to switch it up! With the extra pie crust, I thought it would be cute to cut out cherries and attach them to the top of the pie. The recipe for the crust is from SimplyRecipes.

Ingredients:

(pie crust)

2 cups All Purpose flour, plus extra for rolling

1/2 cup finely ground blanched almonds, or almond flour

1 cup (2 sticks) cold, unsalted butter - cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 teaspoon salt

1 heaping teaspoon brown sugar

6-8 tablespoons cold water, very cold!!

(filling)

2 cans of cherry pie filling (20 oz) - 1 can seems to be enough for me, but it depends!


(egg wash)
1 tablespoon heavy cream, half and half, or milk
1 large egg yolk


Directions:

1. Combine flour, ground almonds, salt, and sugar in a food processor; pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse 6 to 8 times, until mixture resembles coarse meal, with pea size pieces of butter. Add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time, pulsing until mixture just begins to clump together. If you pinch some of the crumbly dough and it holds together, it's ready. If the dough doesn't hold together, add a little more water and pulse again.
2. Remove dough from machine and place in a mound on a clean surface. Gently shape into 2 discs. Knead the dough just enough to form the discs, do not over-knead. You should be able to see little bits of butter in the dough. These small chunks of butter are what will allow the resulting crust to be flaky. Sprinkle a little flour around the discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour, and up to 2 days.
3. Add filling to the pie.
4. Roll out second disk of dough, as before. Gently place onto the top of the filling in the pie. Pinch top and bottom of dough rounds firmly together. Trim excess dough with kitchen shears, leaving a 3/4 inch overhang. Fold the edge of the top piece of dough over and under the edge of the bottom piece of dough, pressing together. Flute edges using thumb and forefinger or press with a fork. Score the top of the pie with four 2-inch long cuts, so that steam from the cooking pie can escape.
5. If you want to add cherry cut-outs to the top, roll out the extra pie dough, and cut the cherries out of it. I used an egg wash to attach the cherries to the pie, and then painted the whole pie with the remaining egg wash.