How to Make the Best Amaretto Cherry Pie Filling

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I may have already mentioned this, but when we moved into our house, the very first thing I made in the oven was a cherry pie. It was my first time ever baking with cherries as well. But it was quickly followed up by this glorious experiment in Amaretto Cherry Pie Filling.

Baking in the Kitchen of Our First House

There’s something about moving into a new place that makes me want to bake. Yes, I get to make statements like that. I have quite the experience in moving, in case you were wondering. I’ve moved 21 times in my life (10 times since I started cooking), so I have christened many a kitchen.

So, as I said, the first thing I baked in our new kitchen was a cherry pie. This was followed by a series of other bakes including a Southern Peach Pie, Brownies, Blondies, and ALLLL the cookies.

Right after I made up my peach pie, I was really feeling the urge to pair every fruit in my favorite pies with booze.  It just so happened that I had a whole bag of sweet dark cherries in my fridge just aching to be played with.

Of course, what goes with cherries better than amaretto? Oh, don’t tell me kirsch. Hush! It’s definitely amaretto. If you don’t believe me, get the ingredients together for this pie filling and make it. You will not be disappointed.

Cherries and Amaretto

Cherries can be a teeny bit tart, but when cooked, they become fragrant and sweet. There is just a hint of almond in the flavor. It’s almost natural to pair it with almond extract or slivered almonds in a nice cake.

Now, amaretto is made from almonds and/or apricot pits. For that reason, I’ve also played with making a jam from apricots and amaretto for kolaczkis. But, it does this amazing thing with cherries in that it enhances every nuance of the cherries.

In fact, it pairs so naturally together with the fruit that it just seems like juicy, sweet, gently spiced, cherry pie filling. You nearly forget that you put it in. I was almost disappointed when I tasted it because I thought it had failed.

But then, I popped a fresh cherry in my mouth, and the difference was immediately evident. Wow! How could that much flavor just weave its way in? It’s like magic.

How to Pit Your Cherries

WARNINGS:  I feel like I might get some angry comments if I don’t put a reminder that cherries will stain the ever-loving tar out of anything and everything, so take some precautions.  Lay down some dishtowels on your countertops and wipe up spurts or spills immediately.  Do not wear white clothes (or anything you really love) while you’re doing this!   

I feel like it’s important to spend some time explaining how you can pit cherries and get them ready for baking. Even if you don’t want to follow the recipe, you should know how to prep cherries.

There is a really cool cherry pitting tool that my mother-in-law found for me. I’ve since used it for every cherry recipe I make.

However, if you don’t have a cherry pitting tool, and you want to pit and prep your cherries, here’s how to do it.

Then, once you’ve gotten your cherries ready, give the counters a good cleaning and wash your hands. Make sure that there is no stray cherry juice left anywhere so you can get ahead of any stains.

I’m actually not kidding. You can hold off on starting your sauce until you’ve gone and stain-treated your shirt. I’ll wait.

To Make Amaretto Cherry Pie Filling

Go ahead and build everything right in your saucepan. As you’re pitting and halving your cherries, just toss them into your saucepan. It saves a dish (you don’t have an extra bowl). Then, dump the rest of the ingredients in after. Use a spoon to coat your cherries, and move the pan to the stove.

I recommend using a pot with a lid, because once this begins to boil, you may have some splatters. The lid will save the wall behind your stove, assuming you’re like me, and there is no backsplash for some dumb reason.

Now, What to Do With Your Amaretto Cherry Pie Filling…

Alrighty. So, when I first made this filling, I ended up with a 1-quart jar and 1-pint jar, which is effectively 3 pints. Amazingly, you could fill a pie with that much filling, no problem. It’d be nicely rounded and very full, of course.

For my part, though, I made up hand pies instead. The great thing about individual servings of pie is that you can’t cut a slice and make the rest of your leftover soggy.

I also used a bit of this filling to dress a cheesecake for my husband’s birthday. A word of warning on this, though. It’s definitely too wet to properly swirl into a cheesecake. It ends up cracking and looking a mess… but it does taste incredible.

So, then, I still had some of this left over. I swirled it into some vanilla ice cream with graham cracker crumbs. It was so much better than anything you could concoct at one of those cold slab creamery places. Trust me!

The one thing I wanted to try but didn’t was that super tasty dessert people always bring to potlucks. I don’t know what it’s actually called. It’s like a layer of pretzels or graham crackers, then a cream cheese pudding layer, and it’s topped by cherry pie filling. If you make that, I’d highly recommend doing it with amaretto cherry pie filling.

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Amaretto Cherry Pie Filling

5 from 1 vote

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Servings 3 pint jars

Ingredients

  

• 1 pound of dark cherries pitted and halved
• 1/4 cup pure cane sugar
• 1/4 cup amaretto
• 1 Tbsp corn starch
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• pinch sea salt

Instructions

 

• Place the cherries in a medium sauce pan with a lid.
• Combine the sugar, corn starch, cinnamon and salt. Sprinkle over the cherries. Pour the amaretto over the cherries, and stir to fully coat the cherries.
• Cover and set to a medium heat until it comes to a boil. Reduce to a simmer for half an hour, stirring every five minutes.
• Remove to an air tight container and store in the refrigerator over night or up to a week before you build your pie. If you feel like you might want to save this for longer, I recommend getting a quart-sized mason jar, and doing a proper canning of it. ​

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