Easy ways to turn the summer cherry glut into Christmas decadence.

Words: Jenny Garing

When you’re lucky enough to live in a cherry bowl like Marlborough, December is the time when these lovely summer fruits become daily fixtures on the table. We just can’t get enough of them. I prefer the darker early-fruiting varieties like ‘Dawson’. But we also end up with a good mix of others like ‘Stella’ and ‘Lapin’. We have also taken to drinking locally-made sweet cherry juice every night before bed for a good night’s sleep.

Eating chilled and fresh cherries is one of summer’s great pleasures. But cherries also go remarkably well in a number of desserts and cakes. They are good friends with almond, apricot, black pepper, rose, red wine or port, plum, chocolate, cinnamon, cardamom, basil, mint and vanilla. They also pair well with spirits like brandy, kirsch, vodka and rum.

But perhaps the most sumptuous marriage is between cherries and chocolate. Try adding chopped fresh cherries to a brownie mix, or make individual chocolate fondants in ramekins with some pitted whole fresh cherries dropped into the middle just before baking. Black forest gateau is, of course, a chocolate and cherry classic, but you could also add cherries to a chocolate ganache tart. In the past I have pitted fresh dark cherries and then tried to dry each and every one (using a hair dryer) so that I could dip them into dark chocolate to set as individual cherry chocolates. They were more successful than the lychees I tried preparing in the same way.

Cherries and roses belong to the same family, Rosaceae, and the two are a natural pairing in desserts and cakes. Add a few drops of rosewater to a cherry ice-cream mix. Or make a cherry rose tart using rosewater in the custard mix. Mix some rosewater into cherries before turning them into pies or turnovers, or cook up fresh cherries with rosewater, lemon juice and sugar to fold through an Eton mess.

A quick and simple way to use cherries is to poach them in red wine with star anise and vanilla to make sago or tapioca pudding. You can eat the poached cherries with ice cream or cream, or add them as a topping to other desserts. Or, go completely decadent with a cherry souffle, cheesecake, or clafoutis – the classic French dessert made of cherries baked in almond batter.

I have a little bit of Caribbean heritage and my husband, Graeme, has some Danish blood, so the following two recipes are in honour of these backgrounds. Traditional with a twist.

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Caribbean Cherry Rum Cake

Although my great great grandfather was born in Barbados, and this cake recipe is more of a traditional Jamaican one, that didn’t stop my grandparents serving it at Christmas. The native cherries grown in the Caribbean are a little different to our New Zealand ones, but whatever cherries you use, the taste of this cake is exceptional. In Jamaica it is sometimes called a black cake because “burnt sugar” is used in the mix.
I use treacle, which is a good substitute for that tricky ingredient.

Serves: 20
Prep time: 40 minutes
Cook time 1 ½ hours
Waiting time: 2 weeks – 1 month

INGREDIENTS

Fruit Mixture:
300g fresh cherries, pitted
200g prunes
100g currants
200g raisins
250ml dark rum

Cake:
175g soft unsalted butter
175g dark muscovado sugar
2 tbsp black treacle
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
300g flour
2 tsp baking powder
dark rum to keep cake moist

METHOD FOR FRUIT MIXTURE 

Blitz fruit in a blender or food processor. Put the mix into a jar, cover the contents with rum and seal the jar tightly. Keep in a cool, dark place until the cake is ready.

METHOD FOR CAKE 

Pre-heat oven to 180˚C. In a large bowl, hand-cream butter, treacle and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla and mix well. In a medium bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients.

Add dry ingredients slowly to the large bowl, folding it all in. The batter will be very heavy.

Add about two cups of the fruit mixture. Mix well. Pour into a well-greased and floured cake tin. Put in oven and bake for about 1 ½ hours or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Once the cake is cooled (do not remove it from the tin), poke holes into the top with a skewer and pour approximately two to three tablespoons of rum over it. Cover tightly with tinfoil and store in a cool, dark place.

Check the cake with a skewer every three days, adding two to three more tablespoons of rum if it’s too dry. The aim is to keep the cake moist, so don’t add more rum if it appears too soggy. Serve on Christmas Day with a dusting of icing sugar.

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Tipsy Cherries

Having a jar of these on hand makes summer desserts easy. Spoon them over ice cream or on pavlova. Add them to a trifle or a fool. Use as topping on a decadent cake or meringues, or add them to a tart. Once opened, they will last for a year in the fridge.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Wait time: 1 week

INGREDIENTS

1kg cherries stalks on, washed and dried
1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise
1 cassia or cinnamon quill
350g sugar
700ml vodka, kirsch, whiskey, rum or brandy

METHOD

Pack the cherries loosely into a large sterilised jar and add the vanilla pod and cinnamon. Next, add enough sugar to fill a third of the jar and then fill to the top with alcohol of your choice. The cherries must be completely covered. Insert a clean knife down the side of the jar to release any air bubbles. Cover with an airtight lid. Store in a cool place for at least a week before using (the longer the better) to allow the flavours to develop. Turn upside down every so often to ensure the sugar dissolves.

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Pickled Cherries

These look amazing served with terrines, pates and cold meats on platters. But they’re also a nice accompaniment to roast turkey, duck, venison or the Christmas ham. You can use cherry-flavoured vinegar as part of your salad dressing as an added bonus. Once opened, store in the fridge.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Wait time: 2 weeks

INGREDIENTS

1 cup sugar
2 cups white vinegar or apple cider vinegar
½ cup water
1 cassia stick
2 cloves
10 peppercorns
2 cardamom pods
1 star anise
6 bay leaves
1kg cherries, washed and dried

METHOD

Place everything except the cherries in a large pot, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes until it becomes a syrup. Remove from the heat and cool completely. Pack the cherries into sterilised jars and cover with the cold syrup. Seal and place in a cupboard for two weeks for the flavours to develop.

Because the cherries themselves are neither pitted, nor boiled or even heated in this process, they maintain some of the lovely texture of fresh cherries.

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