Freestyle Frangipane Cherry Pie

Rustic yet refined, this recipe for Freestyle Frangipane Cherry Pie is a summer show-stopper. It has a devil-may-care irregularity about it, fittingly so, since the taste is anything but common. The  chewy crust envelops a heap of sweet ripe cherries with a surprise bottom layer of a thick almond custard lurking below.

Better still it’s really not all that hard to make. Even the crust, which can sometimes scare off would-be pie makers.  No refrigerating the dough before rolling it out.

If you don’t have a Leifheit cherry pitter  yet, more’s the pity. (See it in action here.) You can spend an hour or more pitting the cherries for this recipe with one of those hand-held one at a time tools, or you can pop out all those stones in 10 minutes and spend the saved time basking in the sun or reading a good book.

It’s a free country, just hoping to improve people’s lives through better kitchen gadgetry.

Once you get your cherries prepped, turn your attention to the frangipane mix.  Almond flour, sugar, butter, sugar, egg. It’s also an easy food processor operation. Nothing to worry about, you measure and the machine does the rest of the work.

Next up: the crust.  This is not a fluttery, flaky pastry.  Mixing corn meal with the flour gives this crust a big personality.  Freestyle pies — baked without a pie plate — require a strong dough  to keep it all together.  This is a crust with enough integrity to stand alone on a baking sheet.  It’s not a sissy pie crust, but worry not, sissies and novices alike will find it very manageable.

The crust right is rolled out on the cornmeal-dusted baking sheet into a big circle with irregular edges. The jagged artisinal edges come naturally, you don’t have to craft them.

The frangipane is smoothed into a circle within the dough, leaving a big margin so the dough can fold up and over the fruit.

The fruit is piled onto the creamy almond base, the sides are folded up and over the compilation. The top of the crust gets a brushing of egg white and sprinkle of sugar. And then you bake it.

Fifteen minutes or so into the baking time you’ll want to take a look at the pie’s progress. If you detect any leaks, use aluminum foil to make a little protective dyke around the perimeter of the pie.  I’ve only  had to do this once, probably b/c I just may have been a bit careless rolling the dough, not totally free of fissures that could lead to leaks.  You’ve been warned.

What else is there to say?  It’s delicious. It’s unusual. It’s in season. It’s spectacular.

So click here for the recipe for Freestyle Frangipane Cherry Pie and get baking!