While we were at my mom's house picking all of their strawberries [0], Joshua sneaked over to the sour cherry tree and mulberry bushes. We came home and made two beautiful cherry mulberry pies [0].
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 -- but this recipe combining cherries and mulberries only uses 3/4 cup sugar for two 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. :)
We made our own pastry flour for the crust, using soft white wheat. The crust was very flaky and tender. So delicious! I don't think I'll ever want to use all-purpose flour in pie crust again. Having a grain mill is such a luxury! I'm truly surprised at the new dimension it has added to our kitchen.