If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’re well aware of my love to tart fruits, including cherries. I share some of my childhood cherry memories this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon—and more importantly, an easy scone recipe that combines the tang of sour cream and sour cherries. If you prefer sweeter cherry varieties, they work well in the scones, and you can use the same recipe but swap in fruits ranging from apricots to huckleberries to peaches in keeping with the summer harvest cycle.

The sour cream doesn’t just add flavor: it keeps the scones moist, in the same way it does for Savory Herb and Sour Cream Scones and Sour Cream–Applesauce Coffee Cake or Muffins. For the ultimate Twice as Tasty flavor, you can make the sour cream from scratch.

Learn more about cooking with cherries and get the complete recipe for Sour Cream and Cherry Scones in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

Cherries have been late to ripen this year, but my tart cherry tree is loaded. I’ve already picked the first couple of rounds from it, so there will be plenty for scones and other fresh treats, as well as preserving. Canning cherries for jam, salsas, and more lets you store them on a shelf, but you can also preserve them in the fridge or freezer. Dehydrating pitted cherries is an option too, making them an easy and delicious addition to homemade granola.

These are some ideas on the blog for preserving cherries, tart or sweet:

• Smoked. Hands down, smoking is my favorite way to extend the shelf life of cherries. Once smoked, they can still be used like fresh cherries in baking, but most of mine end up as Bourbon-Infused Smoked Cherries for cocktails and desserts.
• Refrigerated. Whole smoked cherries can last all year in the refrigerator or cold-storage space when they’re covered in bourbon. For long-term fridge storage, you can also mix them into a shrub, where vinegar keeps their flavor vibrant or months. You can pickle whole cherries too.
• Canned. Cherries make colorful and flavorful jams and butters. You can also jar them up as a fabulous fruit salsa.
• Frozen. Cherries can be frozen with their pits in place, but I find them easier to use when I remove them from the freezer if I took the time to pit them in the summer. I freeze them on a tray before tipping them into freezer bags so that they keep their shape. I then use them throughout the year in baked goods, fruit syrup, sorbet, fruit curd, and smoothies.

You can find more ways to use and preserve cherries in the recipe index.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic, a digital collection in an easy-to-read PDF format; it’s only available here.