Cherries

[mousme]

The cherry tree has borne fruit. Hurray! Unfortunately, I have NO idea what to do with all those sour cherries. I assume I shall make some sort of preserve from them, but I don't have any recipes. Have pinged ai731 to ask what she did with them in previous years.

Anyone else have experience with these?

Comments

[ladyiolanthe.livejournal.com]

I haven't used them myself but I believe you can make pies with them. I bought a hardy cherry tree for my Mom quite a few years back and it also has sour cherries, which the label on the tree mentioned as being great for cooking. The tree has only recently matured enough to start bearing a big crop but I don't know if my parents have tried turning it into pie yet.

[foi-nefaste.livejournal.com]

Clafoutis!

Amazing desert. Which I made yesterday. Yum.

(recipe linked here:http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/a-big-bowl-of-cliche-come-true/)

[savant-da-rat.livejournal.com]

*bookmarks* Definitely going to try making that this summer, looks wonderfully delicious :d

[foi-nefaste.livejournal.com]

Oh, it is.

The texture is very interesting... if you've ever made dutch oven pancakes (with apples?) the texture is very similar - thick, and almost creamy. And really great for breakfast cold with a dollop of vanilla yogurt, too. :)

[joane.livejournal.com]

PIE!

I have been totally unable to find sour cherries out here, but they're best for baking, iirc. Pie, tarts, or cobbler would be ideal. I have a good cobbler recipe if you're interested (it's Betty Crocker originally, I believe),

Sour Cherries!!

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

SOUR CHERRY PIE!!!!

Oh oh oh SOUR CHERRY PIE like my Gramma used to make! My dearest savant_da_rat suggests sour cherry tarts because they are easier to give away.

He also says: fruit salad; sour cherry jam which you can enjoy for the rest of the year; or just eat them, which is what I would do, until I made myself entirely sick. He also says you can bake them into brownies or cake.

LUCKY YOU! Congrats!

Re: Sour Cherries!!

[savant-da-rat.livejournal.com]

Definitely pie!

For the filling, the cherries (pittied ideally), sugar, and a little corn starch or tapioca powder to thicken it should do the trick. Usually I think it's 1/2 cup sugar to 3 cups fruit, and up to 2 tablespoons corn starch (more if you want a thicker sauce...)


The pie crust is quick and easy if you have a food processor...

Pie crust (double for a two-crust pie):
1 1/8 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoons sugar
8 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 8 pieces
3 tablespoons ice water, plus more as needed

1. Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl, mixing well.
2. Put flour mixture in food processor, add cold butter, pulse until similar in texture to cornmeal (about 10 seconds).
3. Place mixture back into bowl, add ice water, stir with wooden spoon until forms a big clumpy ball; add more ice water if needed. Remove from bowl, press flat between sheets of plastic wrap, freeze for about 10 minutes (this makes it manageable.) Or you can leave it in the fridge for several days until you're ready to use it :)
4. Roll dough out on flat surface with some flour to keep from sticking, assemble pie.

This pie crust recipe has never failed me :) I end up making these one at a time even for a two-crust pie, because my food processor is too small to do a double batch. This same pie dough is great for quiche, esp. if you mix in a little extra salt and some dried thyme.

Re: Sour Cherries!!

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Would you mind elaborating on how to make the filling? I've never made pie that's not apple pie before, and I'm a bit confused as to how to combine the whole lot. In a saucepan? Do I heat it? Smoosh it together?

Re: Sour Cherries!!

[savant-da-rat.livejournal.com]

Really lazy fruit cobbler would be good too, esp. if you have some vanilla ice cream around. You could do this with just the cherries, or mix them with something else (peaches, nectarines, etc.) This recipe is great because you can whip it up in a flash, and start it in the oven when you sit down to dinner -- by the time you're done the main course, you have bubbling hot delicious cobbler! :d The fruit can be just about anything; nectarines and blackberries are my favorite.

Berry Cobbler recipe:
4 to 6 cups fruit, washed and dried
1 cup sugar (or to taste), divided
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
8 tablespoons cold butter
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Lightly grease an 8-inch-square or similarly sized baking dish with a little butter or cooking spray.
2. Toss fruit, with 1/2 cup sugar (or more to taste), until well coated. Spread fruit mixture into bottom of baking dish.
3. Combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl; mix well. Put flour mixture into food processor, add butter, and process for 10 seconds. Put the flour mixture back into bowl, mix in egg and vanilla by hand (mixture will be very sloppy, this is ok.)
4. Drop clumps of flour mixture on top of fruit by hand. You don't have to cover the fruit completely or spread it out to a smooth layer, the batter will spread on its own as it bakes -- be lazy about it! I usually do about a dozen blobs of it over the top of the fruit, more or less evenly spaced.
5. Bake until batter is golden yellow and just starting to brown and fruit mixture bubbling, about 35-45 minutes. Serve immediately, ideally with ice cream :d

[kimberly-a.livejournal.com]

I often buy dried sour cherries and use them to replace raisins in recipes (I much prefer the taste) or just eat them as snacks or mixed into trail mix. So perhaps you could dry some of them?

[longpig.livejournal.com]

Make pie... and invite me over... :V

[chasingthenuns.livejournal.com]

you can freeze them.

[toughlovemuse.livejournal.com]

It's not a recipe, but Yarn Harlot has apparently discovered that it is easiest to pit cherries using a metal DPN.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

This would be the first year that the cherry tree has borne a really significant number of cherries. I planted the tree so that I could make cherry pie (and also because cherry trees are pretty). Cobbler & Clafoutis are also excellent suggestions. Also, if you let them ripen fully, they are plenty sweet enough to eat straight off the tree, imho - which is what I did last year.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

There's definitely enough fruit on there for a pie, or perhaps one or two small jars of jam of some kind.