What do you do with cherries when they are a great buy? Without question, one of the best things about summertime is all the fresh fruit! This week Washington Cherries are on sale for $1.69 in my area. That’s a great time to buy them. I remember well when, on the right week, you could pick them up for $0.99 a pound! Wow! Actually, last year that did happen one week, although it’s very rare anymore. Cherries are my husband’s favorite fruit so I am always excited to find them at a good price. If you want to purchase quite a few of them, call your various grocery stores and ask to speak to the produce manager. Ask him how much he would charge you for a case of cherries (about 18 pounds). Often they will give you a better price by the case. I usually call early in a sale like this to see if they’ll bargain. Different produce managers will give different bargains so shop around a bit. Putting several cases in your freezer for winter is a smart thing to do. I’ll share with you some of my favorite things to do with cherries! Tomorrow I’ll try to share with you my famous Muffin Tip, which you’ll love. In the meanwhile, you can go stock up on cherries so you’re ready! By the way, if you have any great cherry ideas or recipes, please share them here!
Freeze Them!
Cherries are a little bit time consuming to freeze, but well worth the effort! You want to wash them in ice cold water, remove the stems and drain them well. Don’t let your fruit sit in the water for long periods of time, it’s not good for them. The next step is to get the pit out. Pitting cherries can be lots of fun for the children! I like to do it outside, because it tends to be messy. I cover my table with an old washable tablecloth that I can easily toss in the washing machine. There are a number of different gadgets for removing the pits. Google the phrase “cherry stoner” (without the quotations) and you’ll find several. We’ve used this one for years. Once the pits are removed put the cherries in a single layer on a cookie sheet that has been lightly sprayed with a cooking spray. Use the kind of tray that has sides on it. A half-sheet cake pan is a good size. When the pan is covered with cherries, put them in the freezer until frozen. Finally, remove the frozen cherries and put them into whatever sized ziploc bag you want to use. I freeze them in quart bags. During the winter they are wonderful to eat frozen, thawed and put on ice cream, added to other fruit for a fruit salad, and probably many other things that I’ve not yet thought of! Enjoy the “fruit” of your labor!
Fresh Cherry Muffins
Fresh Cherry Muffins
From the Kitchen of: ME!
These are hands down my favorite muffin recipe of all our scrumptious muffin recipes!!! You only get to have them during this small window of the year. Because you need to pit and slice the cherries, they are more time consuming then most muffins, but oh so worth it!
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp almond extract
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
2 ½ cups cherries
2 cups flour
½ cup milk
Topping:
1 – 2 Tbsp sugar
¼ tsp nutmeg
Beat butter and sugar till creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beat in extract, baking powder and salt. By hand mix in cherries. Then ½ flour and ½ milk. Repeat. Put in 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle with topping.
Bake 25-30 minutes at 375 degrees.
Cool 15 minutes in pan.
Fresh Cherry Bread
Cherry Bread
I found this in my recipe file. Sadly, I don’t know who it came from. Judging from the handwriting I think there is a possibility it came from my Aunt Billie but it might have been Aunt Tiny. I wish I knew for certain. I highly recommend that whenever you get a recipe from someone you add both the name of the person the recipe comes from as well as the date you received it. Decades later you’ll be so glad for those bits of information.
4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
½ cup shortening (I use butter)
2 eggs
1 cup orange juice
2 Tbsp orange peel (grate)
¼ cup warm water
1 cup chopped nuts (I use pecans)
2 cups chopped cherries (drain well)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and Flour Pans – do you know about the Baking Spray from Pam? It sprays the flour and grease together. Great stuff!
Sift flour, sugar, baking powder into bowl. Cut in shortening. Beat in egg, orange juice, peel and water. Stir in nuts and cherries.
Bake in 3 pans (7 ½ x3 ½ x 2) for 1 hour at 350 degrees.
Cheers to your Cherry Creations!