cherries Archives

Tartine is defined as an open faced sandwich, usually on toasted bread. It has come to mean “fancy toast”, as made popular by the charming Carrie Baird, one of my favourite cheftestants on Top Chef.

Tartines are an opportunity to use up all these little bits in the fridge and pantry, and call it dinner. This one came about because I had some cherries that were starting to go a bit soft. Cherries might not be the first fruit you think about roasting, but the heat of the oven causes the natural sugar in the cherries to caramelize resulting in a greater depth and intensity of cherry flavour!

I had a mix of Rainer and Bing cherries. Rainer cherry season is so short, I always get greedy and buy way more than we can possibly eat. This is a perfect solution for those leftover, slightly less than perfect cherries.

I seasoned the cherries with olive oil, a drizzle of honey and some thyme. They only take about 10 minutes in the oven. I was inspired by The Flavour Bible to pair cherries with thyme. It’s such an excellent resource book.

The whipped ricotta is an Ina Garten recipe. She starts with homemade ricotta, but gently tells us that store bought is fine. I had half a container of store bought, about to expire, languishing at the back of the middle shelf in my fridge, so I used that. The ricotta is mixed with a bit of feta, some cream cheese and a splash of lemon juice. It all gets buzzed in the food processor, for a creamy, tangy whipped dip.

I sliced up a baguette, on the diagonal, and toasted the slices, because we’re fancy here at salt and serenity. Leftover toasted sourdough slices would be very delicious.

Click here to print recipe for Roasted-Cherry-and-Whipped-Ricotta-Tartine Download

If you happened to be at Your Independent Grocer (or “THE YIG“, as my sister likes to call it) in Smiths Falls, Ontario, last Wednesday, at around 2:30 p.m, and you heard a crazy woman let out a gleeful scream, well, that would be me. You see, as I turned the corner, just past the pluots and nectarines, I spied a bin filled with Ranier cherries.

The Rainier cherry is the sweetest, prettiest and most pampered of cherries. Developed in 1953, it is a cross between the Bing and Van varieties. Golden to orange to pale red in colour on the outside, one bite reveals a creamy yellow flesh. They are more delicate and sweeter than Bing cherries. The season for Ranier cherries is extremely short, a few weeks in mid July, and then it’s over.

During cherry season, I eat cherries like it’s my job. During Ranier cherry season, I work overtime! I filled my cart with several bags of Ranier cherries and probably ate at least a pound of them on the drive back to the cottage. I continued to gorge on Ranier cherries for the next several days and pretty soon I was sweating cherry juice. (In my defense, it was quite humid.) It became apparent that I would have to do something with the cherries before the rest spoiled.

Tartelette’s blog came to my rescue! If you haven’t discovered this blog yet, I urge you to go on over for a visit. It is charming and filled with wonderful recipes and gorgeous drool inducing photography. She made little cherry cakes topped with a pistachio crumble. Brimming with fresh cherries and slightly flavoured with lemon zest. this cake is a wonderful way to celebrate cherry season. I made it with my surplus of Ranier cherries, but in hindsight, the flavour of Ranier cherries is so delicate, and the colour so pale, they were lost in the cake. Next time I make it, I will use Bing cherries.

Pitting the cherries is the most time-consuming task in making this cake. if you don’t have a cherry pitter, do it this way:

The crumble and cake come together very quickly. I made a 9 inch square cake, although if you have mini cake pans, it would make an adorable presentation!