Cherry season!

It's early Summer and it's CHERRY SEASON!  Yum!  This is our first fruit crop of the season.  Our Stella Cherry tree produced a 'stella' crop.  Look at this huge bowlful, and that's only about 1/4 of what we picked.

Unfortunately, not all the fruit ripened fully on the tree.  We had to pick it early as the birds were having a huge feast.  I don't mind them having some, but it was disappearing very quickly.  Picking the fruit early means that they don't develop their natural sweetness to the maximum, because cherries won't continue to ripen after being picked, unlike other stone fruits. (I learnt that from the River Cottage dvds).

Last night we decided to have a go at making a cherry pie.  It gave me a chance to try out this little gadget: a cherry stoner.

 

My hands were very sticky and very well stained after we finished doing four cups worth!

We followed a recipe I found at Joy of Baking.  It uses tapioca as a thickening agent, which I had on hand, so thought we'd try out.

After the required baking time, I found I needed to let the pie 'sit' a little while to cool and let the tapioca soak up all the lovely cherry juice.  Maybe it's because my tapioca wasn't the 'quick cooking' variety specified.  Anyway, it tasted WONDERFUL!

Until next post!

Catherine