Harvested a pound and a half of tart cherries...

anyone got any recipes to use 'em?

At first, I was thinking wine but recipes I've read have called for a greater quantity.  Next was jam, yum.

My neighbor has a crab apple tree with fruit.  Think I should ask for some and do a cherry/apple jam thingy?

I eat the heck outa them with just a dab of raw sugar on top

but I'm weird

I don't even use the sugar.

I ate some fresh.  They were about 60% tart and 40% sweet and super juicy.  Thought a cherry wine would be good but recipe calls for four to five pounds.

Maybe just thaw them out and use as a syrup on some fresh cake or something.

You could dry them and make some granola. Plenty of hilly granola recipoes on the net

Travis Halverson wrote:
I ate some fresh.  They were about 60% tart and 40% sweet and super juicy.  Thought a cherry wine would be good but recipe calls for four to five pounds.

Maybe just thaw them out and use as a syrup on some fresh cake or something.

Could make a quarter batch of wine...probably be a bottle or two.

I added 100 grams of tart cherries to a one-gallon batch of elderberry wine. The two made a very good flavor combination.

One thought about tart cherries: in a zone where you get a few light fall frosts, leave them on the tree.

All of a sudden, sour cherries are nice enough to eat right off the tree; and the complex flavour is far above the commercial dreck in the supermarkets.

At least, that worked for my orchard of Evans cherry trees.

I grew up with sour cherries. We always made cobbler with them. Cherry cobbler are the two words that make me think of home more than anything else.

I liked just eating them off the tree as well.

We shared with friends and birds and we froze the rest.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:One thought about tart cherries: in a zone where you get a few light fall frosts, leave them on the tree.

All of a sudden, sour cherries are nice enough to eat right off the tree; and the complex flavour is far above the commercial dreck in the supermarkets.

At least, that worked for my orchard of Evans cherry trees.

I'd never heard of that, but it makes sense. I always enjoy leafy greens more after a frost or two. Do you think the same could be done for crabapples and other very sour fruits?

I love sour cherries.  I make a sauce out of them and can it for later use on ice cream, cheesecake, etc.  

I deseed them, and cook them on low in just a very small amt of water until they are soft and have made a lot of liquid.  Then I scoop out the cherries, set them aside, and continue cooking down the juices by about half so it makes a thicker syrup.  I add splenda to mine, but you can add your own sweetener of choice.

Then I can them using waterbath instructions for fruit (don't have that here to reference).   It's so yummy.

Here, it's a race to harvest before the birds get them all.  They can strip a large tree in a just a couple days once they begin to ripen, no waiting for frost here.  My sour cherries are ripe in mid-late summer here in zone 6b/ MA.  

I'd never heard of that, but it makes sense. I always enjoy leafy greens more after a frost or two. Do you think the same could be done for crabapples and other very sour fruits?

Oh yes.  We have a couple of feral crabapples near us that are unbearably sour/bitter until about November when they transform into juicy sweetness with just a little tang.

I also just eat many of them as is.  I freeze the vast majority of them because I grow so many.  My wife makes pies, crisp and cobblers from them. They are delicious.
John S
PDX OR