After last week’s cherry denial, I swooped down and bought up two quarts of sour cherries, brought them home, and lovingly wrapped them in plastic and dumped them in the refrigerator. The unpacking continues (so close, nearly done!). We were barely feeding ourselves. There was no time for fripperies.
Until Friday. Did I mention that my job has summer hours? I gladly exchange a few extra minutes each weekday for an entire Friday afternoon to while away as I will. And that meant pitting cherries.
This is not an activity I would encourage anyone to do in a hurry. Rushing through pitting two quarts of cherries sounds like a recipe for misery. Instead, I put on NPR, settled myself comfortably at the kitchen table, and put my paperclip to work. It was a meditative act, the pitting, an exercise in simplicity. I enjoyed it, though I don’t want to do it again very soon.
At the end of some unspecified amount of time later, I had a lot of pitted cherries. Each quart of cherries gave me about 3.5 cups of pitted cherries. My glorious ice cream book gave me a recipe for sour cherry frozen yogurt that took 3 of those cups. The rest I froze. Later in the summer, we’ll have that sour cherry tart I’ve been talking about for so long now.
It turns out that sour cherries taste like cherry candy. I never knew that cherry candy had anything to do with cherries—I thought it was just one of those constructed sweet flavors, a culinary depiction of redness.
Back in high school, I went to an orchard one afternoon with friends, and I still remember one of them offering me a Concord grape. “Eat it,” he said, a delighted grin on his face. “It tastes like grape candy.” It did, too.
This was just like that, but for cherries. I boiled them with sugar, then tasted the red syrup on the spoon, and I was licking cherry candy. I added a little kirschwasser from the liquor cabinet to the syrup as well, to keep the frozen yogurt smooth.
While the cherries and syrup cooled, I went out for Greek yogurt, for extra creaminess, and I also picked up some amaretti cookies from the Italian bakery across the street. The only amaretti I’d had before were from a package, and crisp all the way through. These little beauties shattered on the outside, giving way to a soft, interior of almond paste. So very good.
Almonds and cherries—a classic pairing. And what a classy combo they made, as ice cream sandwiches, or rather amaretti and sour cherry frozen yogurt sandwiches. Delicious!
Sour Cherry Frozen Yogurt
adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz
3 c sour cherries, pitted
¾ c sugar
1-2 T kirschwasser
1 c whole milk Greek yogurt
3 drops almond extract
Combine cherries and sugar in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer five minutes, stirring frequently. The cherries will release a lot of juice. Add kirschwasser. (This would also be terrific with Amaretto, in which case you could skip the almond extract. But I had cherry liquor, so that’s what I added.) Set aside to cool--to at least room temperature. I popped it in the fridge overnight, myself.
Puree all ingredients in a food processor (a blender would likely work as well) until smooth. Seriously, blend these a lot so you don’t have big bits of cherry skin messing with the texture. It will be an amazing pink. I would like to paint my nails this color.
If the cherries started from fridge temperature, this is now ready to go in the ice cream machine. If not, cool in the fridge for two hours, then freeze it in the machine.
If at all possible, buy some amaretti cookies and make ice cream sandwiches. Oh, and then have your friends bring over some Vin Santo--an Italian dessert wine--and sip it while eating these on your roof deck. That makes for a pretty terrific Saturday night.
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