Sharing simple tricks to keep you enjoying this remarkable berry all Winter long!
My Evans Sour Cherry Tree produced 50 pounds of pitted cherries in 2013. What a bumper crop! This year, we lobbed off a massive branch of the tree that was infringing upon our deck and a blustery spring storm whipped off many of the delicate buds just opening with the promise of the candy apple red jewels, lost in the wind.
My 2014 harvest fit into the two bowls below. After pitting and weighing, I got about 14 pounds of pitted cherries this year or just over 6 kilo. Suffice it to say that I made very little cherry juice and no liqueur this round.
The brightness of their colour makes it very difficult to photograph them with clarity, but I assure you , this is their natural colour: an almost supernatural candy apple translucent red that, apparently has some extraordinary health benefits. Did you know that?
Everyone dreads pitting sour cherries, yet I am so excited to harvest them, I forget how tiring it is. I started with the first bowl and after a couple of hours with barely a dent in it, enlisted the family. That was good fun and should be a requirement for every family having any kind of cherry tree. My daughter called us the Taste Tripping Sweat Shop as Vanja, and she were pitting sour cherries while I was doing other preparations. But, it was good family fun! (Wasn’t it Ragan?!)
I have never found a cherry pitter that works as good as a straw. They are expensive, and these cherries can be quite soft if a bit over ripe (I came home from the Balkans this year to my tree dazzling in the sun). The straw works like a charm! Practice twisting it into the stem end of the cherry and hold the cherry firmly to force the pit out the other end. It is usually held in the hole of the straw, so comes out clean.
An over ripe berry may have a little brown circle near the stem end, but that is simply evidence that the sun has worked a little sugar magic into the fruit: the riper they are, the sweeter they are. Though no sour cherry could ever be called sweet!
There is a method in the Lugonja house Taste Tripping Sweat Shop: the most unblemished, perfect, or “good looking” cherries go into one bowl for making fresh cherry tarts. The others go on a parchment covered tray for freezing and the misshappen or badly blemished ones (but not too badly) go into another bowl for preserving. If there was a huge harvest like last year, there would be a lot that would not get pitted. (I only have 2 little hands and the sweat shop isn’t open 24 hours). That’s where I make cherry juice and liqueur. Yummers to both of those, but neither will see the light of day this season.
The cherries on the sheet, and there are many, many sheets like this, get frozen just like they are and as fast as possible in the coldest freezer as possible. I try to place them on different shelves of my stand up freezer so that they will all freeze in a timely fashion. Of course, some go out into the chest freezer, too. What is important, is that within 12 hours, they are as hard as a rock.
Then are then placed into zip lock lunch bags at about 375 grams per bag: a perfect amount for most recipes and two bags for one huge pie. Frozen berries make magnificent cherry pie. They are then labeled Cherries 2014 and into the freezer they go.
You can see my raspberries on a sheet there. I still pick about a cup or two off my raspberry bushes a day, right now, so onto this sheet they go, until it is full. I do Saskatoon berries this way, black and red currants, and just about every berry I grow or can lay my hands on. They are beautiful to pull out in the cold seasons to make into preserves or anything the heart desires.
See that dark bag, above to the left? It is full of some of my preserved cherries from last year. They were hiding, or they would be long gone by now!
So this season, I announce Pucker Up 2014! I will be developing three new sour cherry recipes for the Cherry Marketing Institute and writing up some of my tried and true ones that have not yet found their way to my archives, here.
Oh, dreams about all of the delectable sour cherry concoctions I will make with this year’s harvest, starting with my Sour Cherry Jam: the perfect accompaniment to The Okanagan Bakery’s chocolate bread. MMmmmmmm…..
Preserved Evans Cherry Raisins
Rugelach with Preserved Sour Cherries
Sour Cherry Studded Gooey Chocolate Brownie
Sour Cherry Chocolate Chunk Cookies
And I have just developed a new recipe for this season: The Sour Cherry Marzipan French Tart! As well, I have written about how to pit and freeze cherries (above) and make cherry juice with sincere promise of more to come this season as Evans Cherries are a cherished gift to my garden and Canadian sour cherries are a celebration of the Alberta prairie summer that resonates within my family all winter long whenever I pull glistening bags of Mother Nature’s jewels from my freezer.
Who grows their own, and what do you do with your sour cherries? Did you know tart or sour flavour is trending this year? Ah, yes! “Tis the season for Pucker Up 2014.
Brilliant, Valerie! I LOVE the tip for using a straw to pit the cherries. My mom and I did three pails like that last night while watching TV. It was so quick and easy – and actually fun because it went so fast. Wonderful idea – it will change my cherry-pitting life forever! I used to use a knife, and wouldn’t pit very many – mostly juiced or brandied them. I like to leave the cherries on the trees until the first week of September because they become so much sweeter, but they ARE softer then, too. So this pitting method worked like magic. Thanks for the great tip! The cherries are freezing on cookie sheets as I write this. Can’t wait to use them in all sorts of ways this winter!
Thrilled to hear this, Margaret! And they are sweeter the longer they are left on their branch, aren’t they – but so soft…. freeze like little babies, though. Love them. Hey, chime in on my other posts as I am giving away a DYNAMITE prize from the Tart Cherry Institute. I have a Sour Cherry Ginger Beef up tomorrow – and it is delicious. Need to double the sauce, though!
🙂
Valerie
I dabble in preserves in the fall. My neighbour does not so graciously gave me her Evans cherries from her tree. Time was not permitting so I threw them in the freezer unpinned.
My thought was that I would just boil them up and make jelly since the pit is still in the cherry. Do you have any other suggestions??
Michelle
Hi Michelle
You can still pit cherries thawed for pies, jams and other desserts, but it is a messy business. I have done it, though – so jelly is a great idea, but the options are still open to you. Just put a great big beach towel on the floor, turn on a really good movie, grab a few straws for pitting, and go to town. Let me know what you end up making.
🙂
Valerie
Absolutely love your tip about removing pits using a straw – it works like a dream! I’ll never use another method now.
Yes, the cheapest and easiest pitting tool ever, eh?
🙂
Valerie
I freeze my cherries with the pit in. When I use them I pit them using a German counterparts pitter while they are still partially frozen. Doesn’t mash-up the fruit. Easy to handle and the cherries retain a hint of almond taste from leaving the pit in.
Excellent information, Pauline. Love that. Can you provide a link for me for the pitter you use?
XOXO
V
I think I found it. Is yours stainless steel? Affordable and what a Godsend if pitting frozen works well!
🙂
Valerie
https://www.amazon.ca/Westmark-WE4070-Germany-Cherry-Stoner/dp/B001CJOF9A
I can’t remember how many times I was googling a recipe and came across your site. I’m always so excited because they’re filled with experience and tips. I bought a old farmhouse in Alberta in April. This spring and summer has been so exciting watching mystery perennials bloom. I knew there was a gigantic Nanking cherry tree, but didn’t realize I also had a beautiful tart cherry. My eldest daughter decided to try muffins with them, they reminded me of cranberry in the muffin. She just squished them between thumb and forefinger to pit them. I love the straw idea! A neighbor made us a rhubarb cake with a shortbread crust and meringue topping, I’d like to try the same idea but with cherries instead.
Thanks for all the wonderful recipes!
Dear Sarah,
What a lovely sweet moment from you. Thank you! I looked up to see your past comments and there are a few dating back to 2013. What an adventure to purchase an old Alberta Farmhouse and wait for the prairie garden surprises to appear. My tart cherry tree was harvested too late this year. The cherries were over ripe and couldn’t be properly pitted, so I made a truckload of juice for gelatins and jams an syrups through the winter. Doing that was easy, but felt like such a cop out. At least, we didn’t waste the produce! And, I think the cherry juice concentrate I just made this morning is delicious. Next time, I’ll do a combination of lemon and cherry concentrate.
So, best wishes on your new farming adventure! And thanks for letting me know that I pop up on your radar via Google Search a lot. That warms my heart and makes all the writing and sharing I do so worth it!
Hugs,
Valerie
I’m so happy to have found this page! We moved to a new home this year with a huge cherry tree and I had no idea what we would do with all the cherries it’s giving us!
Well, Casey,
That is a problem every year as these trees produce!! But the fruit is so delicious and good for you that I cannot waste a single one. If look at the side bar on the left of my site, near the top, you will find my SEARCH window. Type in “cherries” and you will get a ton of ideas – for the most part – just lay a parchment paper on a baking pan, and lay all pitted cherries on it, fast freeze overnight, bag up in a freezer bag that is labeled and dated. After that, you can make any of the recipes! I highly recommend my preserved cherry recipe. It is an original recipe I developed over time The little morsels are addictive – you can use a lot of your fruit making them, and they can be used all winter long as a snack, in desserts, in salads – and so many ways.
Let me know how it goes!
Big cheery cherry hug,
Valerie