Not cherries

From mid-December to late-January we had an abundance of what we believe to be Mirabelle plums from a small tree in our front garden. This was a lovely Summer bonus. Until the first fruit appeared around late November we had no expectations that the tree would yield anything at all. We first saw the property when it was on the market in March last year after all the fruits had fallen.

We first thought they were cherries, or rainier cherries to be precise. mrshill was convinced they were rainiers - they looked just like them, after all. When we first tasted them, they were sour and rainiers are supposed to be sweet so we assumed they just weren’t ripe. One clue to suggest they perhaps weren’t cherries was the fact that when eating them, the flesh of the fruit did not come away from the stone as easily as cherries do when compared with plums.

First harvest (1.998 kg)

We harvested two more rounds of a similar size. Unfortunately the leaves of the tree looked as though they were being eaten by pests - apparently it was ‘peach slug’. We treated them with a special concoction the local nursery recommended but we didn’t harvest any after that. Hopefully when the leaves grow back next Spring they will be nice and healthy!

With our harvest we made quite a lot of jars of (not) cherry jam and jelly. We also had some very refreshing (not) cherry sodas, with the concentrated liquid and soda water.

The process was -

1. Fit as many fruits as possible into a roasting dish.
2. Sprinkle with sugar.
3. Roast in over until soft.
4. With a sieve and a spoon, separate the flesh from the stone.
5. Reserve the liquid draining through the sieve.
6. Use the flesh for cake mix, jams and jellies.

Roasted

Separation process

Jams and jellies

Currently we have a whole lot of the flesh we extracted in the freezer that we plan to use to make (not) cherry cake, or perhaps even (not) cherry crumble!