Cherries: Jelly, Dried, Frozen, and Cake

I realized I never finished posting about our cherry harvest and jelly making!  We ended up making 23 1/2 pints of beautiful cherry jelly.  We've already given several jars away though so I am not sure quite how many we ended up with ourselves.  It is really no matter though as it is a heck of a lot more than we made last year which was...none.  This was our first venture into jelly making.

Lisa, Eli, and I picked and pitted several more baskets full of cherries while they were visiting several weeks back. 

Oh, I cannot tell you how nice it was to have those extra hands to help pit all those darn cherries!  It was all the more enjoyable because I was able to chat with my sister the whole time while we worked...hardly seemed like work, more like hanging out (somewhere really sticky anyway!).  I wish we could do things like that more often.  She took a few jars home with her for her pitting labors.

Matt made the actual jelly while Lisa and I were busy doing all the sticky-pitting prep work.  We also kept the dehydrator full and running all day long resulting in about 3 pints of dried cherries as well as a good amount put away whole in the freezer.

 

 

Lisa took some of the fresh cherry juice and made us a fantastic swirl cake--gluten, egg, and dairy free.  It was not only tasty, but quite beautiful as the crimson juice swirled with the white vanilla cake.  It also had whole cherries on the bottom.  She just sort of made it up as she went I think, though based quite loosely on a recipe.  I was impressed.  I cook like that, but I never bake like that.

For our inaugural jelly making I am quite pleased with the whole thing.  It was a lot of work to pick and pit  the fruit, but the pay off is awesome and made me feel a great deal of satisfaction.   But, of course, the best part is that it is simply delicious!

 

I've been trying to work up the gumption to go fill one more basket full before the birds finish off the cherries, but I am not sure I am up for it. If I put it off any longer I may have the choice made for me as the cherries are on the way out for the season.  Either way it was a good season already.