Sunday 15 June 2008

Cherry Update

All the cherries from the sawn off branches have now been picked in what was a race against the slugs and snails. I haven’t weighed them but guess I had 3 or 4 two-gallon bucketfuls; now the race is to process as many as possible before they go off.

The David Lebovitz candied ones, about a pound starting weight, are done and in the fridge. They aren’t what I would call glacé but more like ones you would get in jam. I won’t be using them in cherry sponge but I think they will be really nice with ice-cream.

The 7lbs I’m candying using the long process look and taste far more like glacé cherries – I’m just on day 4 at the moment.

I’ve a batch of the No-Recipe jam on the go too, no idea the weight of cherries used but it was a layer of 2 and a bit inches in the bottom of the jam pan which made about 2 and a half pints of liquid and cooked cherries.

Following the old adage of waste not want not, I zested the lemon before adding the juice so I’ve lemon zest for cakes or maybe a batch of lemon shred marmalade and the squeezed halves are going in the bottom of the dishwasher where they act as deodorisers and rinse aid.

I was going to make some cherry syrup with the remaining cherries but I’m going to have all the syrup left over from the candying process so the remaining cherries are going to become cherry jelly as I can’t be bothered to stone any more – just cook, squidge and strain, a lot faster.

And I’ve 1 lb of cherries sitting in a bottles worth of vodka destined to be cherry liquor in 8 months time.

There are still a few more cherries on a couple of the trees but I’ve strawberries to pick tomorrow so I don’t know if I will be doing anything with them yet. If I do I think it will be pie filling but at the moment I getting close to my limit of cherries, I even see them in my sleep.


5 comments:

aims said...

What do you mean you put the halves in the bottom of the dishwasher? Just layed them face up on the bottom?

I've never heard of this - does it work? Better in there than in the garbage which should be the compost.

So how do you know when it's time to take them out? Don't they get mouldy?

dND said...

I just chuck them into the bottom aims and let them do what they want as long as they don't stop the bottom rotor.
They are probably effective for half a dozen or so washes depending on the amount of dishwasher powder you use (I'm very miserly with mine) and what temperature you use - I use the economy setting.

When I think they've been washed out, or to put it another way, when I remember I then chuck them on the compost heap. I've never had them go mouldy yet - they are washed nearly every day so I guess that stops it. I think I came up with the idea from the Moneysavingexpert site which is where I found out about drastically reducing the amount of detergent from what the manufacturers suggest. After all they want you to buy more and more of their stuff to bolster their profits.

Breezy said...

No sign of cherries here yet. Last yar they never did anything so fingers crossed for this year

mrsnesbitt said...

Gosh, I must stop procrastinating and go outside. It is blogs like yours which put me to shame.

Anonymous said...

Great tip about the lemons - will give that a go after making lemonade.
Have you tried cherry brandy ? It is probably the same process as the cherries in vodka. I've got a recipe up on my blog for cherry brandy, and you don't need to stone the chrries just prick them.