A few years back, we lived in Princeton, New Jersey, where my husband attended seminary. If you were to stop me on the street and ask me what the best part of living in New Jersey was, I would answer without hesitation: the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch markets. More specifically, their soft pretzels.* Followed closely by their desserts: fried hand pies, whoopie pies, and sticky buns. Followed closely again by the Garden State’s fabulous (and affordable) farmer’s markets.

Let’s all take a moment of thoughtful gratitude for Amish baked goods.

Our favorite fried hand pies at the Amish market always had a good-sized pat of cream cheese in them, which I think is sheer genius. Hold this thought.

I knew, when I was planning the pie for this weekend, that it was going to be primarily consumed by The Husband, because I was going to be out of town at a conference. This meant that the pie had to be cherry—his favorite. The best cherry pies in his book are made from Michigan cherries, where he spent a number of memorable childhood summers sipping cherry-ade at The Cherry Hut. Lucky me, I found a forgotten bag of Michigan pie cherries in the freezer. Taking a nod from our Amish dessert experts above, I decided to up the ante by adding dollops of cream cheese. Behold, the Don’t-Forget-Me-While-I’m Gone Cherry Pie.

The Don’t-Forget-Me-While-I’m-Gone Cherry Pie

I did manage to get one slice of this pie before I had to leave, and it was delicious. The filling is primarily borrowed from The Best Recipe’s Lattice Top Cherry pie, to which I’m partial, but the cream cheese was a nice addition. Unfortunately, it didn’t physically integrate into the pie well, and next time I might consider creaming it with the sugar before stirring them both into the cherries. Also, the pie turned out a little soupy because I forgot to compensate for the high proportion of cherry juice in this particular batch of cherries. That said, the pie evidently served as a reminder of me several times a day over the course of the weekend, being as it was gone by the time I got home.

* Though soft pretzels closely rival pie in my food love rankings (and would likely win on most days—gasp!), this is a pie challenge and a pie blog, so this post will stick to the fried hand pies.

The Don’t-Forget-Me –While-I’m-Gone Cherry Pie
Adapted only slightly from The Best Recipe’s Lattice-Top Cherry Pie

Ingredients:
1 recipe pie dough (you can use the same one I used here)
¼ c. cornstarch
1 ¼ c. sugar
¼ tsp. cinnamon
a pinch of salt
6 c. sour pie cherries (frozen or fresh)
¼ tsp. almond extract
3 oz. cream cheese

Roll half the pie dough out to a circle approximately 11 inches in diameter. Fit into a greased 9-inch pie pan. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Soften the cream cheese in the microwave. Stir together with the cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and almond extract. Add to the cherries and stir to distribute evenly. Add the filling to the unbaked piecrust. [This is what I would do next time. In reality, I just placed pats of cream cheese on top of the cherry filling before I added the top crust, and the cream cheese didn’t incorporate itself at all. Still tasty, but not the most skillful or beautiful in terms of presentation.]

Roll out the remainder of the pie dough to a circle approximately 10-11” in diameter. Dipping your fingers in cold water, dampen the rim of the bottom crust (to ensure a tight seal), and place the top crust over the pie. Press gently along the rim to seal. Trim the selvedges of the dough to about an inch overhang, then fold under and crimp decoratively. Cut several vent holes in the top of the pie.

Lower the oven temperature to 425 degrees, and bake the pie for 25-30 minutes, or until the crust is set and begins to brown. Lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake an additional 25-30 minutes, or until crust is brown and the juices are bubbly. Cool and serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.