Dessert recipes

Here are a couple of quick and easy dessert recipes for the cherries. The only thing that takes a little time is pitting them, but you can get a cherry pitter at the Home and Garden store in Jackson that will make the job easy. Either Raniers or Bings work in these recipes, although I like the color of the Bings better.

Cherry Bread Pudding
1 pound ripe cherries, pitted
3 slices white bread, toasted
1 cup milk
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted (carefully, or they’ll burn)
1/2 cup cherry jam
4 teaspoons granulated (ordinary) sugar
1 teaspoon unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon powdered sugar
1 cup whipped cream, sour cream or vanilla yogurt, or ice cream (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Pit the cherries. Coarsely crumble the toasted bread into a bowl (you should have about 1 cup). Add the milk and the almond extract. Add the cherries, cherry jam, and the toasted almonds (reserving 2 tablespoons) and mix well. In another bowl, mix the reserved two tablespoons of the toasted almonds with two teaspoons of the granulated sugar.

Grease a 6-cup gratin or baking dish with the butter, and sprinkle the greased dish with the remaining two teaspoons of the granulated sugar. Pour the cherry mixture into the dish and top it with the almond/sugar mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool to lukewarm, and sprinkle with the 1/2-teaspoon of powdered sugar, and serve with whipped cream, sour cream, ice cream or yogurt. This serves four generously.

This next recipe is sort of like a thick pancake with cherries in it. Despite the fancy name, it’s really quite easy to make. In France, where the dish came from, they don’t bother to pit the cherries, but I’d go ahead and pit them anyway. No one wants a cracked tooth on a cherry pit!

Cherry Clafouti
2 pounds cherries, pitted
2 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar, plus 1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
Pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat with the sugar, flour, salt and milk to make a smooth batter. Put the cherries into a buttered baking dish and pour the batter over the cherries (If your cherries aren’t really sweet, sprinkle them with some sugar first. And if cherries aren’t in season, you can use two cans of black cherries, strained).

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. As soon as the clafouti comes out of the oven, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of sugar. Serve warm. This is also excellent topped with whipped cream or ice cream.

Pitted fresh cherries are also superb stirred into black cherry Jell-O and mixed into your favorite rice pudding or tapioca pudding recipe. Plus they’re just perfect for snacking and a bowl of fresh cherries by itself makes a lovely dessert. So if you haven’t had any fresh cherries this season, hurry up!