With the upcoming cherry harvest, the question is “what to do with all those wonderful tart cherries?” ripe for picking and eating.  This recipe makes great use of fresh tart cherries, but frozen can be used when fresh are not available, especially during the holiday season.  I did not have enough tart cherries, so I used half sweet.  I do not advise using sweet cherries at all.  The tartness of the cherry is what makes this recipe so good.

I found the original recipe at goldenspiderweb.com and was really intrigued.  I have had it in my stack of “things to make” for some time and was excited to finally try it. The original German recipe with English translation was a definite challenge.  It required converting European measurements to U.S. and the recipe calls for gelatin leaves.  I looked at all my local haunts and could not find gelatin leaves,  so I used Knox gelatin and, again, conversion to powder—another challenge.  If you can find gelatin leaves, I would recommend using those instead.  The German recipe did not specify the amount of water for dissolving the gelatin and the guess on the part of the goldenspideweb.com page for 2 cups of water may be a little much.  I would certainly not use more than the 2 cups of water and the next time I make the recipe will reduce the water by half.  It would give the gelatin more flavor–so if anyone out there is brave enough to try it before I do—be my guest.  It also stated four servings.  Too much, I felt, so I have increased the serving size to six.  See the variations below for my other thoughts.  Overall, this recipe is very simple to make and is best when left overnight before serving.

WINE AND CHERRIES

Ingredients:

1          cup red wine
1          cup FruitFast Cherry Juice Concentrate (4 Tbsp  to 1 cup of water)
2 -3     whole cloves
1          cinnamon stick
Rind from one lemon
1          lb sour cherries (frozen is ok, thawed-approximately 4 cups)
3         Tbsp Knox gelatin (6 gelatin leaves, if you can find them)
Whipped cream or whipped topping
FruitFast CherryFlex Liquid Fruit Supplement

Directions:

Dissolve the gelatin in cold water (2 cups) and set aside.  In a saucepan combine the wine, cherry concentrate, cinnamon stick, cloves and lemon rinds.  Bring to a boil over low heat, then immediately remove from heat.  Discard the cinnamon stick, cloves and rind.  Add the gelatin and let cool.

While wine mixture is cooling, divide the cherries between 6 dessert glasses, keeping a few cherries as garnish.  Pour the wine and gelatin mixture over the cherries.  Refrigerate several hours or overnight.  Top with whipped cream or whipped topping.  Drizzle with the CherryFlex Liquid and garnish with cherries.

Yield:  6 servings

Variations: Place pound cake or lady fingers at the bottom of the serving dishes, cover with cherries and then the gelatin mixture.

Instead of dessert cups, use a large serving bowl and take to your next potluck or family gathering.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Desserts, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.