If you can only find dark, sweet cherries feel free to use those and add a tablespoon or so of lemon juice to the puree to brighten the sweetness…though, I urge you to find the sour ones if you can. I also used homemade vanilla sugar–I keep a jar around or simply rub the guts of a vanilla bean into the sugar–if you don’t have a vanilla bean, stir 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract into the yogurt mixture. I used non-fat greek yogurt here because it’s basically the only yogurt I buy. The complex flavor of the cherries is perfectly matched with smooth vanilla, making this frozen treat a sure winner. I get by just fine with whole, frozen sour cherries. Even here in Michigan–a major sour cherry producer–I have never seen a fresh one. They’re the red gems you find in a classic cherry pie–sans pie goop. The thing with sour cherries is that they can be tough to find. They are mouth-puckering on their own, but a little sugar makes them sweet-tart and I find that they have an almost cinnamon-spice background flavor that just makes me crazy for them–dried, frozen, or jarred. Since moving to Michigan I have become obsessed with sour cherries. The cherry-vanilla situation reminds me of the cherry push-pops of my youth…but more tart, more vanilla-y, and more better. This is a project that requires some freezer space.įrom 20 pounds of cherries, we got 7 1/2 bags, meaning about 3 pounds of the lot was composed of stems, leaves, pits, and bad cherries (of which there were very few).Oh, hey! It’s another ice pop! These pops are the creamy, frozen yogurt variety, blended with tart sour cherries and bit of vanilla. I scoop the frozen orbs into bags, weighing out 2 1/4 pounds each, just enough for a deep dish cherry pie. While laying them out, I give each one a gentle squeeze it’s pretty easy to find the ones that clung to their pits in the first round. This prevents the fruits from sticking together into a solid block as they freeze, preserving their integrity, and making it a whole lot easier to remove a few cherries from the bag. If you have ever seen the term IQF on a bag of frozen food, that’s what they are referring to. Once pitted, I “individually quick freeze” the fruits by laying them out in a single layer on rimmed baking sheets and putting them into the freezer until they are frozen hard. These took two full afternoons of baseball, sitting on the family room carpet lined with an old pink bath towel, using this fantastic cherry pitter and the largest bowls in the house. Next, the stems and leaves get pulled off, and any badly damaged fruit discarded. After purchasing 20 pounds of the bright little orbs yesterday, the wife and I set to work.įirst, I give them a dunk in cool water to rinse off any dirt that might be clinging to them. Sour cherries are a piece of work, not just to find, but to pit. They made a beautifully sweet-tart sauce for a goat’s milk yogurt panna cotta. When I cooked those cherries with a bit of sugar, their juices first ran clear, then darkened, presumably from the skins. Lagier is known mostly for its almonds, almond butter, and fruit spreads, but every year, they bring a small supply of tart cherries to the market, where they are quickly snapped up, generally in a single week. With its dark juice, this Washington State variety was most likely in the latter family.Ī couple of weeks ago at the farmers’ market, I picked up a small bunch of bright red Montmorency cherries from Lagier Ranches in San Joaquin County, California. Sour cherries are divided into two major types - amarelle varieties, which are small and bright red with clear juice (Montmorency being the most common), and morello varieties, with red juice. These Royal Dark Tart Cherries from Dorsing Farms hailed from Royal City, Washington, and according to Royal Ridge Fruits, are a variety called Arides, one I have not seen referenced elsewhere. Yesterday, I was excited to come upon a towering case of sour cherries at Berkeley Bowl Marketplace in Berkeley, California. You won’t find many of them in the west, unfortunately, but for a flash you may find a small supply at your farmers’ market coming from Northern California, or in stores, imported from Washington State. The fruits are most plentiful in Michigan and Wisconsin, but are also found on the east coast. If you have eaten a cherry pie that left you feeling indifferent, I’d bet it was made with sweet cherries, which turn bland and rubbery when baked, rather than these sour beauties with the complex spicy flavor. They are well worth the effort to hunt down, clean, pit, freeze, and package up for the coming year. These tart cousins of the popular Bing, Van, Rainier and other sweet varieties are elusive, with a very short fruiting span, making them available for just a week or two, sometimes less. Every year around this time, we go on the hunt for sour cherries.
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