This Cherry Vanilla Bean Pie is filled with juicy sweet cherries simmered with fragrant vanilla bean and tucked into a buttery, flaky crust.
Rich, jammy, and bursting with summer cherry flavor, it’s especially delicious served warm with a generous pour of cold cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Cherry pie has always been a favorite. When I was growing up, on occasion, and mostly in the summertime, my father would pull a frozen cherry pie out. Marie Callender’s, probably.
He’d serve it after Sunday dinner, always in a bowl, and always with a questionable amount of cold heavy cream poured over the top.
I promise you this pie is significantly better than the frozen boxed variety. The only thing I am not changing from the pie of my youth is the heavy cream. Apparently it comes in pints…
Tips & Tricks
Make the filling ahead of time.
For best results, prepare the cherry vanilla bean filling in advance and chill it completely before assembling the pie. Using cold filling helps keep the pastry firm while you work and allows the crust to bake up beautifully flaky.
Make the pie dough ahead, too.
The pie crust can be prepared in advance and stored, well wrapped, in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to assemble the pie, remove the dough from the refrigerator about 20 minutes before rolling. This gives it just enough time to become pliable without allowing the butter to get too warm.
Keep your dough cool while decorating.
If you’re creating a lattice or adding decorative pastry pieces, return the dough to the refrigerator anytime it begins to feel overly soft or sticky. Cool dough is much easier to work with and will hold intricate shapes better during baking.
You may not need to tent this pie with foil.
I generally cover my fruit pies loosely with aluminum foil for the first 40 minutes or so of baking to keep the crust from browning too quickly while the filling cooks. Because the filling in this pie is already cooked and chilled before assembly, the pie doesn’t require as much baking time. I typically find that covering it at the beginning isn’t necessary. If the crust does begin to brown more than you’d like toward the end of baking, simply tent it loosely with foil.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do you use a little shortening instead of making an all-butter pie crust?
Butter is still the star of this crust, but I replace a small portion of it with shortening because it makes the dough slightly more forgiving and pliable. That little bit of extra flexibility is especially helpful when creating lattices, leaves, cherries, and other intricate pie-crust designs—the dough has more movement and is less prone to cracking or breaking as you work with it.
The amount of shortening is quite small, so you still get the buttery flavor and beautiful flakiness you want in a pie crust. If you prefer not to use shortening, you can replace it with an equal amount of butter for an all-butter crust; just expect the dough to be a little less flexible when creating detailed designs.
Do I really need to make the cherry filling ahead of time?
I highly recommend it. The filling should be completely chilled before it goes into the pie crust. Adding warm filling to cold pastry can soften the butter in the dough and make the crust more difficult to work with, particularly if you’re creating a decorative top.
Making the filling ahead also makes assembling the pie much easier. You can prepare it the day before, refrigerate it, and have it ready to go when it’s time to roll out your crust.
CLICK HERE FOR THE CHERRY PIE FILLING RECIPE
Can I make the pie crust ahead of time?
Yes! In fact, I often prefer to. Prepare the dough, wrap it well, and keep it refrigerated until you’re ready to assemble the pie. Take it out of the refrigerator about 20 minutes before rolling so that it can soften slightly. You want the dough cool but pliable—it should roll easily without cracking while still feeling firm.
Why isn’t this pie covered with foil for the first part of baking?
For many fruit pies, I loosely cover the crust with foil during the first portion of baking because the filling needs quite a bit of time in the oven and the crust can become overly brown before the filling is finished.
This pie is different because the cherry filling is cooked before the pie is assembled. Since the filling doesn’t need as much time in the oven to cook through and thicken, the overall bake is shorter and the crust is less likely to become overly browned. If yours is browning quickly, you can always loosely tent it with foil as needed
Looking for more cherry -based desserts? I’ve got you.
Cherry Almond Meringue Butter Cake
Cherry Browned Butter Vanilla Bean Tart Tatin
Ingredients
Method
- Place the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with an 's' blade. Pulse the mixture a few times until blended together.
- Add the shortening to the food processor and pulse once.
- Add the cubes of butter, one at a time, pulsing a few times after the addition of each cube.
- With the processor running, drizzle in the ice water until the mixture starts to form into large clumps. Do not add too much water. Dough should not be sticky or wet, but should come together to form a nice dough.
- Divide the dough in half, wrap up one half and set aside.
- Roll the other half of dough into a ball, press into a disc shape, and place in between two sheets of parchment paper.
- Roll to a circle that is 1 1/2-2 inches larger in circumference than your pie dish.
- Place the sheet of dough over the top of your pie dish and remove parchment paper. Press the dough in to fit the bottom and sides of the dish. There should be a little bit of dough left hanging over the edges.
- Trim dough around the edge of the pie.
- Spoon the prepared and chilled cherry pie filling evenly into the dough lined pie dish.
- Place the remaining half of the pie dough in between two sheets of parchment paper, press into a disc shape and roll to a thickness of 1/16".
- Cut the dough into thin strips and cover the pie in a lattice pattern(or make any design of your choosing).
- Cut off the pieces of lattice that hang over the pie crust.
- Brush beaten egg over the top of the pie crust.
- Bake on the middle rack of an oven at 375 degrees for 50-55 minutes, until the filling is bubbling and crust is golden brown. The center of the filling should be thick and gel-like.
- Remove from oven and let cool.
- Serve warm with a pour of cold heavy cream or with vanilla ice cream!
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