This recipe is best with freshly picked cherries if you can get them. Luckily for us, we live right next door to a beautiful orchard which managed to re-open just in time for cherry season after the Covid pandemic!
They make the most delicious cherry pie filling which is fab over a dollop of mascarpone as a simple dessert, or with waffles and ice-cream or indeed as a pie filling! I'm a fan of crumble rather than pie so I'm sharing my recipe below you can see photos of us cherry picking at Oast Farm in Buxted here ;)
INGREDIENTS:
For the Filling:
500g pitted fresh cherries (I only used half this amount which just made 3 small ones with a little extra filling, I baked the excess crumble on a tray and used as a dessert topping.)
100g sugar
zest & juice 1 lemon 1 tsp vanilla extract 1-2 drops almond extract 15g butter 50ml water 2-3tsp cornflour
For the topping: 140g flour 100g butter 100g demerara sugar 60g rolled oats 20g chopped almonds zest of 1 lemon
METHOD:
Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Put all of the filling ingredients in a non-stick pan on a medium heat and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar, turn down the heat and keep stirring while the sauce thickens (about 5 mins) then remove from heat.
To make the crumble topping, blitz all the ingredients in a food processor until you have crumbs.
Pour cherry filling in your desired dish(es) and top with the crumble mixture. Bake in the oven at 180oC for 20 minutes.
Serve with fresh cherries (if you have any left) and a dollop of mascarpone.
