Cherries Jubilee!

sour cherry ice cream from laugingduckgardens.com

I’m Celebrating Cherries!

Ok, truth be told, I have a feeling that today is the day for Kate and Will to have their baby – I don’t know why, I just feel like it is. And so, in honor of this blessed event and the great Queen Victoria, the monarch for whom Cherries Jubilee was invented by no other than Auguste Escoffier, I am celebrating today with this recipe, and cherries in general.

photo courtesy happydaycatering.com

I think the heat has gotten to me over the past few days. I spent a couple of days this week in the City where you know, they have radiational heating. Then, at home, I keep trying to sneak outside to get a few things done – even to water – and I wind up back in the house after about 5-10 minutes. I am so looking forward to the weather changing over the weekend so I can get back to my Summer – well one outside of the air conditioning, anyway. No point in dwelling on that, right? On to better topics………

I am enamored of, and nostalgic for all of those classic and quintessential dessert items from awhile ago that are considered passé now – have been put on the “back burner” so to speak. We have definitely trended to lots more highly constructed plates, foams, gelées and quenelles and pyramidal structures of everything, on which we spent a very considerable amount of time in pastry school. I’m not knocking any of these inventions – I just think the dessert plate is a place for presentation but not the outright “design and build model”. I am all for good presentation.

I am even for some restrained embellishment – by which I mean a garnish of an herb and or a dollop of some decadent creme fråiche or mascarpone-based lovely thing. Beyond that I am usually distracted by trying to analyze what’s been set in front of me and more often than not I am disappointed when the flavor takes a back seat to all the work the pastry chef did in developing the recipe and then arranging the plate. I guess I am quite boring.

I have to say that in spite of how the design element is near totally what is featured on the pages of Dessert Professional and many chefs make it very big in highly constructed and designed plates, I am always happier and heart-warmed by the foggy-ish desserts of old – the cut and slice, the placement on the plate of just, what is. It’s just personal preference. And, I think there are some particular classics which we remember and will make over and over again through the years – like Cherries Jubilee, Bananas Foster and Crepes Suzette…….. Call me crazy, but I’ll choose a flaming copper sauté pan of boozy cherries enveloping some previously unsuspecting best quality vanilla ice cream any day over an acrobatic building of chocolate pieces! BTW, catch Julia and Jacques doing their flaming thing on Create. They’re priceless.

After a disaster last Summer with the ruination of the spring blossoms due to a late freeze, this year’s Cherry Crop seems to be booming. I usually don’t think of New Jersey as a great Cherry producer, but I have seen a lot of cherries from South Jersey at the Farmer’s Markets in the last few weeks. This is very exciting to me. I usually think of the northwest when I think of cherries – like Michigan, Oregon and Washington – where they are crazy for their cherries!

My Mom’s Cherry pie is one of my very favorite desserts of all time and I have written about it here before. Coincidentally, it is one of Christin’s too – she must have gotten the Cherry gene.

Here is a great article about Cherry farming in New Jersey – right in Princeton! – http://www.terhuneorchards.com/our_crops_cherries.html

And, here’s an overview of cherry producers in the US is as follows: http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/fruits/cherry-profile/

Over the past three days I have been trying to collect a nice compendium of cherry recipes to amass. Do I need to amass more recipes? No! Does that ever stop me? No! Last night while I was boring Christin and George to death while watching yet another episode of Julia and Jacques, it occurred to me that I NEVER get bored watching cooking shows or reading about food – not EVER! (Too bad for my family and friends.)

Here are just a few to get you going. I have to tell you that all I have been thinking of this week are cherry ice creams, ices, sorbets, gelatos and jams, compotes and ooey-gooey toppings for lots of recipes. I caught an Ina Garten re-run of the Challah French toast episode today and go to thinking about why you wouldn’t add a multitude of different fruits right into the custard – and this definitely includes cherries. So, give it a try – I’m planning on it next time I have overnight guests at the Cape.

This is the one I am particularly intrigued with: Smoky Chipolte Cherries – http://localkitchenblog.com/2012/06/26/smoky-chipotle-cherries/

http://www.adventures-in-cooking.com/2013/07/balsamic-cherry-pie-with-black-pepper.html
Lora Brody’s Cherries Jubilee – http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/cherries-jubilee
David Lebovitz’s – Lemon Yogurt cake with Apricot/Cherry Compote – http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2013/06/lemon-yogurt-cake-recipe-apricot-cherry-compote/

In the collection: Cherry Macaroons

courtesy Yauatcha

Brown sugar pavlova with fresh cherries, mascarpone ice cream and yogurt cream… courtesy Public NYC

Cherry Almond Torte by Rivka and courtesy Food 52: – http://food52.com/recipes/5294-cherry-almond-torte

Daniel Humm’s Sour Cherry Crumble: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Sour-Cherry-Crumble-51157620

Courtesy: Bon Appetit’s August 2013: Cherry-Bourbon Ice cream: To the vanilla ice cream recipe below, add the following:

Cook 1 1/2 cups halved pitted cherries, 2 tblsp sugar, and 1 tblsp water in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until syrupy, 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 1 tblsp bourbon; let cool. Process custard and fold in cherry mixture just before transferring to freezer. Makes about 4 cups

True Vanilla Ice Cream: Combine 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup whole milk, 1/4 cup sugar, and a pinch of kosher salt in a medium saucepan. Split 1/2 vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape in seeds; add pod (or use 1 tsp. vanilla extract). Bring mixture just to a simmer, stirring to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat. If using vanilla bean, cover, let sit 30 minutes. Whisk 5 large egg yolks and 1/4 cups sugar in a medium bowl until pale, about 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in 1/2 cup warm cream mixture. Whisk yolk mixture into remaining cream mixture. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly, until thick enough to coat a wooden spoon, 2-3 minutes. Strain custard into a medium bowl set over a bowl of ice water; let cool, stirring occasionally. Process custard in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an airtight container; cover. Freeze until firm, at least 4 hours and up to 1 week. Makes about 3 1/2 cups.

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Courtesy: laughingduckgardens.com:

But you can make ice-cream without an ice-cream maker – and pretty decent ones at that. Oh, sure, it won’t be as smooth as ice-cream churned in an ice-cream maker; yet you can do pretty well if you select assertive sweet-tart fruit at their peak of ripeness, so that flavor – not texture – is what every body notices. And the texture is not bad, just a little rougher than my other ice-creams – and far smoother than granita or shaved ice. But you do need electricity.

With my recent sour cherry bonanza, I really had a chance to play around a little. Sour cherries are fairly fragile, oxidizing fast when destemmed or pitted. As I picked, I pitted (and pitted, and pitted … I said that already, didn’t I?). What did not get eaten fresh, jammed, syruped or baked right away went into the freezer in one-cup bags. The idea was to use them in winter – mostly for baking.

The reality is that it’s been unusually hot, I mean it’s been hot early and continuously. So we’ve been hankering for coolness on the plate, and with the summer berries barely starting and the stone fruit weeks away, frozen sour cherries were too tantalizing for us to wait 6 months before eating them.

You see where that’s going, don’t you? Frozen fruits, cream and sweetener. A blender. The freezer.

Although I have not yet tried it (not the season yet), I expect this recipe would work equally well with raspberries, blackberries, wineberries – any fruit with a tart undertone and a beautiful color. For blueberries or sweet cherries it may be necessary to add some lemon juice to reach a pleasant tartness. Use a complementary syrup, or ahead of time warm up some of the cream with 3/4 cup sugar stirring until sugar is fully diluted. Let cool before using.

Sour Cherry Ice-Cream Without An Ice-Cream Maker

2 cups sour cherries
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup sour cherry syrup (homemade or purchased – a good quality one)
1/2 inch of fresh ginger root, minced

Four hours or more before you want to eat the ice-cream (well, yes, there is a catch, if you don’t have an ice-cream maker, you need to be a little patient), process all ingredients in the blender until smooth (but not too much – you still want to see the flecks of the cherry skins). This will have the consistency of a smoothie.
Pour into a shallow container – metal preferably – and put in the freezer. Once an hour or so, stir the concoction with a fork.
Serve when sufficiently hardened (about 4 hours) or transfer to a storage container with a lid. We are still eating from a batch made a week ago, and the texture is fine!

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