We are eating and conserving at an alarming rate, and I've been a little busy to blog about my work, to tell the truth.
My plan was to write one article about our berry harvest, recipes and conserving ideas; but that article would take forever to read, so I've decided to divide it up, berry for berry. Today's berry is the cherry!
Our cherry tree is quite tall, so although we get a huge amount of berries every year, most of them go to the birds.
With the first batch we picked, I was feeling too lazy to go the store for the missing ingredients for our favorite cherry recipes, so I Googled 'Cherry Muffins' and came up with the recipe for these cuties:
They were tasty, mainly because I added a little bitter almond extract to the frosting. I love bitter almond, and it is divine with cherries. And plums. And lots of other things, but let's get back to the cherries.
For the second batch of cherries, I made sure I had almond paste and chopped almonds home for my all-time favorite cherry recipe: Cherry Buns.
I started with pitting a cup of cherries, which is not fun. Every time I pit cherries I become convinced that eating them whole, directly from the bowl is the way to go.
While I was doing this, my son whipped up a batch of dough,
which rose beautifully
and was rolled out to two rectangles.
We then made a filling, with soft butter, almond paste, brown sugar, chopped cherries and Amaretto.
We spread the filling on the dough, rolled it up, sliced the logs in thick slices, let it rise again, then brushed the slices with egg and sprinkled over chopped almonds with a cherry on top.
Whew! If you thought it was a lot to read, you should have been doing the work! No wonder I only make these once a year.
But the result is worth it!
Still, cherries straight out of the bowl are mighty tasty. Probably the tastiest berry to eat au naturél.
We've picked a few liters so far this year, but as many as we eat, and as many good things as there are to bake, we don't conserve cherries in any way. If we do get too many to eat, they freeze very well.
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