Cherry

What do you say when a nice Jewish boy gives up a promising career as a lawyer to become a self-appointed “amateur gourmet”? (“Oy!” his mom probably said.) When the audacious amateur himself, Adam Roberts, used my recipe for Strawberry Frozen Yogurt (page 91) as inspiration for churning up a batch of Sour Cherry Frozen Yogurt, he posted the results on his web site, www.amateurgourmet.com. It was an idea too delicious not to include in this book. However, when pressed for minor details like, say, a recipe or exact quantities, Adam played the amateur card and feigned ignorance, forcing a certain professional to do his duty. This recipe calls for sour cherries, which are different from their sweeter counterparts and sometimes require a bit of foraging to find (Adam found his at Manhattan’s Greenmarket). Their tiny little pits can easily be slipped out by squeezing the cherries with your fingers or with the help of a cherry pitter.

Although this unusual risotto could be served with Parmesan cheese shaved over the top as a savory side dish, it’s at its best as a dessert. Serve it warm and topped off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some sweetened whipped cream. Gobble it all up before the ice cream has a chance to melt.

During the brief cherry season when fresh cherries are abundant (and inexpensive), I make as many batches of candied cherries as I can, as they keep beautifully in their syrup for months in the refrigerator. I’ll add a handful of candied cherries to a fruit crisp before baking, or drain them well and fold them into a batch of just-churned ice cream. They are particularly good spooned over lemon desserts, such as Tangy Lemon Frozen Yogurt (page 174) and Lemon Semifreddo (page 65), and are delicious used in place of the chocolate-covered peanuts in White Chocolate-Ginger Ice Cream (page 149). Or, if no one’s looking, I just pluck one from the jar and pop it into my mouth.

I was asked to do a frozen dessert demonstration on the Today show and figured it was going to be my big breakthrough. In my imagination, I would dazzle the media and viewers with my ability to make sorbet without an ice cream machine, catapulting my career into the culinary stratosphere. However, as soon as I pitted the first cherry, the host, Katie Couric, became fixated on my spring-loaded cherry pitter and challenged me to a cherry-pitting duel (I should have realized those who get to the top have a competitive streak). She insisted on using a paperclip, which I knew would put her at a disadvantage. Her method was slower than mine, but being a good guest, I let her win (which explains why I’m not at the top). And because of the nature of live morning television, we barely had time to get to the sorbet. In the end, she went on to make millions of dollars as a celebrity and I went home with my cherry pitter in my suitcase. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether to use a cherry pitter or a paperclip to pit your cherries for this sorbet. But you definitely won’t need an ice cream machine—the food processor is the machine for this frozen dessert.

My friend Cindy Meyers, who tested many of the recipes in this book and my two previous ones, wrote me, excitedly, that this dessert was her favorite of all that she tested. “The almond topping is so fluffy!” she commented. Considering she’s someone that I look to for criticism, when praise comes forth, I’m flattered.

This definitely isn’t a common flavor of paletas in Mexico! It’s inspired by one of the first desserts that wowed me as a child—and my favorite dessert for years: cherries jubilee. My extended family and I were on a cruise, and one night all the waiters came out to make cherries jubilee, flambéing the cherries tableside, then serving them over vanilla ice cream. It was quite a theatrical spectacle to see all the elegant waiters simultaneously come out of nowhere with their carts. I was more impressed by the amazing flavors than the dramatic flair. Back then, I was too young to know the word sublime, but that’s definitely how I felt when I ate it. In this version, sour cream replaces the vanilla ice cream. Its tart flavor complements the sweet cherries deliciously.

Sweet cherries are delicious as a cake filling and make a luscious topping for cheesecake.

A foodie friend of mine was in the hospital for leukemia treatments when his caregiver called me. Our buddy wasn’t having a great day, and it didn’t help that his doctors were saying he couldn’t have his favorite pick-me-up food, fruit. Now this is a guy who can eat a quart of strawberries at a sitting. In a sense the docs were right; raw fruit can contain bacteria, a problem for people with low white blood cell counts, which show they’re prone to infection. But I had a solution. I told his caregiver, “He can have fruit; you just have to cut it up and heat it thoroughly to kill off the germs.” The docs had no objections, the caregiver came in with a beautiful medley of stewed seasonal fruit, and my friend was thrilled. So if you’re concerned about raw fruits, this is the recipe for you. The heat, along with a little bit of lemon juice and a pinch of sea salt, breaks down the fruit’s fiber, making it soft but not mushy. I used apricots and cherries here, but any fruit in season will do.

Buckles differ from crumbles and crisps in that the fruit is interwoven with cake batter, then topped with a crumb topping. This dessert is a favorite of my son Monte’s. He loves it for its funny-sounding name and its supreme yumminess. The top should have a buckled or crumpled appearance.

A sundae in a cupcake? Yes, please! Light and fluffy strawberry cupcakes make this twist on a classic dessert a fun addition to any party. Assemble beforehand or set out bowls of all the toppings and let your guests customize their own cupcakes.

Chocolate cake with a whipped cream center is then topped with chocolate frosting, more whipped cream, chocolate shavings, and a cherry.

This cupcake with white chocolate chips and chunks of cherry is superb with White Chocolate Frosting (page 94). Top the cupcakes with a cherry for a special finishing touch. For a holiday version, substitute frozen cranberries for the cherries in the batter.

Warm, boozy cherries over ice cream is a classic dessert, and it’s so easy to do. We like ours over chocolate ice cream (but when Bobby doesn’t quite have the energy to make this, you know he’s always got Cherry Garcia in the freezer).

Cold fruit salads like this one are an old-fashioned piece of Americana. You can find recipes for stuffed canned peaches and pears and other so-called salads like this one in historic Southern cookbooks and of course in classics like the Joy of Cooking and The Settlement Cookbook. You don’t see them much around anymore, which is a shame because this salad is cool and refreshing—a great thing to serve for a summer lunch or as a first course for a dinner party. It may seem weird nowadays to serve canned pears with mayo, but would I waste my time with something that wasn’t good as hell? I didn’t think so.

Think of this sweetie as a giant Linzer tart cookie. Use any flavor of fruit preserves that you want, add a bit of fresh fruit if you like, and have fun making a little crisscross lattice top! It’s super-cinchy—the only thing to remember is to use really high-quality preserves.

The week of July 9, 1955, “Rock Around the Clock” bumped “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” off the top of the charts. That was the week rock and roll became king. This combination of Granny Smiths and cherries rocks.

This delicate, wobbling cream is perfumed with the mysterious cherry-almond essence contained in the kernel of the cherry pits—a reward for pitting the cherries.

This variation on a Manhattan was created by longtime Lantern bar goddess Kristen Johnson and christened by Lantern lexicographer Phil Morrison. When naming his first novel, Thomas Wolfe is said to have been inspired by an engraving of a John Milton poem on a stone statue of an angel in a cemetery in Hendersonville, North Carolina, not too far from Levering Orchard: Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth: And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth.