Cherries four ways: what to do with a Christmas glut
Cherry season is short, it lands at Christmas, and a self-pick bucket is bigger than it looks. All four of these are worth doing the same evening, because cherries are at their best within a day or two of picking.
Pit them first. A paperclip bent open works if you have no pitter: push the loop in beside the stem scar, hook the stone and lift.
Cherry clafoutis
The classic, and the fastest. Serves six.
Ingredients: 500g pitted cherries, 3 eggs, 100g caster sugar, 60g plain flour, 250ml full-cream milk, 30g melted butter, a pinch of salt, a splash of vanilla.
Method: Heat the oven to 180°C. Butter a shallow baking dish and scatter the cherries in a single layer. Whisk the eggs and sugar, then the flour, then the milk, butter, salt and vanilla, until it is a thin batter with no lumps. Pour over the cherries. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until set in the middle and browned at the edge. Eat warm rather than hot.
Quick cherry jam
Cherries are low in pectin, so this sets soft. That is the right texture for it.
Ingredients: 1kg pitted cherries, 700g sugar, juice of one lemon.
Method: Combine everything in a wide heavy pan and leave for an hour for the juice to draw. Bring to the boil and cook hard for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring often as it thickens, until a spoonful on a cold plate wrinkles when pushed. Pour into hot sterilised jars and seal at once.
Cherries in syrup for winter
The one worth the effort, because it tastes like December in July.
Ingredients: 1kg cherries, pitted or not, 500ml water, 300g sugar, a strip of lemon peel.
Method: Pack the cherries into clean jars. Boil the water, sugar and lemon peel for 3 minutes, then pour over the fruit to within a centimetre of the top. Seal, and process the jars in a water bath at a gentle simmer for 25 minutes. Cool undisturbed and check the seals.
Frozen cherries that are not a block of ice
Pit them, spread on a tray in a single layer, freeze hard, then bag. Loose frozen cherries pour out in the quantity you want and go straight into a crumble or a smoothie. Cherries frozen straight into a bag freeze into one solid lump you have to hack apart.
Updated 10 September 2026