Tammy's Recipes

The perfect blend of sweet juicy mulberries and tart sour cherries makes this one of my favorite fruit pies!

5 cups of sour cherries, washed and pitted (will measure more like 3 cups after pitting, if you pit by hand)
7 cups of fresh mulberries, gently washed
3/4 cup sugar, or more to taste
1 1/2 cups water
6 tablespoons clear jel*
1/2 cup water
Sugar for sprinkling, optional

Pie crust dough for two 9-inch pies with tops (I use my foolproof pie crust recipe)

1. In a large stock pot, combine fruit, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. You can also taste and see if you want to add more sugar to your pies. We use 3/4 cup, which seems just sweet enough to us, but you may prefer yours sweeter or less sweet (also depends on how ripe your sour cherries were!).

2. In a small bowl, mix clear jel and 1/2 cup water with a fork, to remove lumps.

3. When the fruit mixture starts to boil, stir in some (most) of the clear jel mixture. The fruit will thicken into pie filling very quickly. If the pie filling doesn't look quite thick enough for your preference, add all of the clear jel/water mixture, stirring as you add to prevent lumps.

4. As soon as filling is thick (usually less than a minute from the time you add the clear jel), remove from heat.

5. Pour filling evenly/equally into two unbaked 9-inch bottom pie crusts. Place top crust over filling (be sure to poke a few holes in the top crust so the steam can escape!) and seal edges with fingers dipped in water (I crimp/pinch the edges to seal).

6. Sprinkle sugar over pie tops if desired. Bake pies at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until crust is browned and cooked.

7. Serve warm with ice cream, or eat it cold, by itself.

*Clear Jel or Sure Jel is a thickener that looks like cornstarch; we purchased ours at a bulk foods store, though I'm sure you can get it other places as well. The main difference between using clear jel and using cornstarch to thicken the filling is that the clear jel will make your pie filling be the same thickness whether it's hot or cold. This also seems to help keep fruit pies from running over in the oven, since they're not runny at high temperatures. :)

You can use cornstarch instead of the clear jel, but just be aware that your pie filling will thicken as it cools -- so don't over-thicken it when it's hot! :)

My mom has been making cherry mulberry pies for many years, since they grow sour cherries as well as mulberries on their property. The sour cherries and mulberries ripen at the same time of year, so it's easy to mix the two. I absolutely love the flavor combination!

Straight cherry pie made with sour cherries requires a lot of sugar, since sour cherries are so tart. Mulberry pie, on the other hand, is very sweet -- but lacks flavor by itself. For plain cherry pie, we have to use about 2 cups of sugar per pie -- and this recipe combining cherries and mulberries only uses 3/4 cup sugar for 2 pies.

The fruit filling in this pie is a beautiful dark purple color. The flavor is just SO YUMMY. I'm always surprised when someone has never heard of combining sour cherries with mulberries for fruit pie! I could eat piece after piece of this pie. Yum. :) My rating: 10/10