Rainier Cherry Pie

I've been bitten by the pie making bug...

These cherries were just too pretty to not be made into dessert. I am short on time at the moment, so hopefully the pictures will suffice until I can add in the dialouge. I didn't want to keep this from you though!

Edited to add:

Okay, first things first, I guess. Well, I was dying to know if I could make the crust with only butter and have any sort of success. Also, I had always only known of pie dough recipes that you could use your food processor to start. I hadn't really heard of using a stand mixer. Well, I went on King Arthur Flour's website and they did both. PERFECT. Exactly what I was looking for. I simply swapped out an equal amount of pure butter in my pie dough recipe and mixed it in the stand mixer. Easy as, well, I guess, PIE. Yikes.
The trick to a flaky crust, so they say, is to leave some decent sized pieces of butter in the dough not fully incorporated. Also, the chilling for a day or two helps, because you mellow out all the gluten in the flour. That's the stuff that makes the flour have 'get-up-and-go' power when you are trying to get dough to rise. Good for breads, not for pies. After mixing the dough, I separated it into two halves and shaped each into these hockey-puck shaped balls. Those went into plastic bread bags and then into the fridge.

Then it was on to filling. I went for 2 lbs of rainier cherries. They were delicious on their own, so I had a feeling that the pie would be good.
Little shower...
Pitting process
Beautiful new pie plate. I almost got this the day I made the strawberry peach pie. I should have taken the plunge, becuase it haunted my dreams for days afterwards. It needed me to take it home....
After letting the dough come to room temperature for about 10 minutes, it was time to roll. On a floured countertop, this dough was a D-R-E-A-M. I loved the butter so much more than the shortening. So much more mangeable!
Folded it in quarters for easy transfer to the buttered pie plate. (Are you sensing a trend here? Yes, this dessert requires a lot of butter! Not for the faint of heart, but your trip to the gym afterwards is worth it! I promise!)

In goes the filling.

I baked at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. It said to start it at 400, but I found that was just too hot for all that butter. Shortening has a much higher flashpoint (or it might not even have a flashpoint, I am not sure if you can even really melt that stuff...) but anyways, 350 worked perfectly.


Chris even asked if he could take a cherry out of the middle while it cooled. I said no, of course! Haha, poor guy. However, his patience was rewarded, and mine was broken once we decided it had cooled enough after about 50 minutes. It was worth the wait. Recipe can be found here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/06/sweet-cherry-pie/