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tart cherries

M

Mr_Yan

New member
Location
West Michigan
Well my tart cherry trees are heavy with fruit. We made one pie already and don't really want another pie right now.

Any thoughts on what to do with the fruit?

Will pitted cherries freeze well for pies later?
 
A glut of any soft fruit we grow is washed and sugar added, then frozen in appropriate sized containers. We are just finishing up last year's rhubarb, red and black currants, and the strawberries were frozen too but they have all been used already.
This year we have no fruit to freeze yet, the slugs seem to be winning. :( Still waiting on the currants, so fingers crossed!
 
We're big on jelly/jam around here so I'd definitely try that with some. As for freezing, I'm sure they'd be fine if not frozen for a long time. If you're wanting to freeze for long-term storage, I'm not sure. I look at it like this...anything I can buy frozen in the store, I can freeze myself at home. That said, some things need to be blanched for a short time before freezing (I'm not sure if cherries are one of those things).
 
Sweet cherries freezer amazingly. I suggest trying that and pulling them a few hours before you want the treat. Eat them when semi frozen. But I've always done that when the pit was still in them.

With tart cherries I am thinking I will pit and sugar them for the pie then freeze in a pie portion bag. I'm sure we'll use them within a few months but not this week. The cherries need to come off that tree soon though.

I grew up in commercial cherry growing area - the self proclamed "Cherry Capital of the World" - and worked pulling tarps that went under the tree shaker on a cherry farm for a few years. We would harvest 15 to 25 tanks of cherries a day 6 days a week. A tank was about a cubic yard. That was a small farm too. About 25% was sweet cherries and 75% tart cherries which went right to Sara Lee or other processors.
 
I'd candy them. Takes a fair bit of time over a few weeks but worth doing.

I spent weeks making a selection of candied fruit for Christmas presents once, made a load of little coloured card boxes to put them in and gave everyone in the family a box after Christmas Lunch.

Having just eaten a full meal most of them said thanks and put them aside for later, except my Brother in law's rather "stout" dad, who ripped the top off the box, got a dessert spoon and woofed the lot down in seconds :rolleyes:
 
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