Cherries
{intense and juicy with a pleasant snap}
When early summer rolls around, it’s always cheering to see cherries at the markets. In the US, Bing and Rainier, the two mostly readily available varieties of the more than 900 varieties of sweet cherries cultivated worldwide, the first one deep garnet and the second, pale yellow with a reddish blush, both offer a special pleasure when eaten out of hand. (Most are grown in California, Oregon and Washington state but thankfully make their way onto supermarket shelves throughout the States.)
Beyond eating as is, there are other delicious ways to use these seasonal beauties; for example, the recipe for the Buttery Sponge Cake with Polenta topped with a caramelized honeyed almond crunch includes some chopped fruit in the cake and then also some slightly cooked in a chunky sauce which graces the dessert plate. The almond crunch topping here draws its inspiration from the German Bienenstich (meaning “Bee-sting”, hence the use of honey), usually made from a yeasted sweet dough and layered with a custard. Here the topping is used as textural counterpart to the soft light vanilla scented cake and the muted crunch of the cherries. And given the fact that cherries belong to the same genus as plums, peaches, apricots and almonds, it’s not surprising that the flavors of the roasted nuts and the cooked cherries are a fortuitous combination.
A standard creme anglaise enriched with some heavy cream after it has completely cooled is a good base for a Cherry Ice Cream. The cherries should be cooked lightly in a sugar syrup and then cooled before folding them into the almost-completely frozen ice cream. A touch of almond extract would complement the flavors here nicely. Ripen the ice cream overnight in the freezer before serving.