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According to Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen:
"...We rounded up six contenders—fresh sweet cherries, frozen sweet cherries, canned sweet cherries, jarred sour cherries, frozen sour cherries, and canned sour cherries—and made cobbler fillings with each one.Although most of these cherry products made a cobbler filling that looked good, only one -- jarred Morello cherries from Trader’s Joe -- made a filling that tasted good. We loved their deep ruby red color, tart flavor, and plump and meaty texture. In fact, these cherries delivered bracing flavor and a great chew right out of the jar."
This was at least a year ago, so I don't know if they carry this all year round, or only at certain times. HTH.
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re: jaiko
The Middle East Market (2054 San Pablo @ University in Berkeley) has frozen sour cherries. They're expensive ($6 or $8 for two pounds) but I've been meaning to attempt a pie using them.
I think Trader Joe's always has the jarred cherries, but I'm dubious about them making a good cherry pie.
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re: TopoTail
Robert Lauriston
Oct 20, 2012 11:12 AM
I think Persian markets (which Middle East is) usually have those.
I'd give the Cook's Illustrated recipe a try, those TJ cherries are delicious.
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re: jaiko
I beg to differ with Cook's Illustrated on this one. Canned sour cherries do not taste as good as good dried sour cherries. This was not a banner year for Michigan cherries but this company ships and the price is incredible: http://www.cherrybayorchards.com/drie... I buy 6 to 8 four pound boxes when I visit Michigan in the summer.
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re: GailC
Robert Lauriston
Oct 21, 2012 02:01 PM
The German Morello cherries Trader Joe's sells are tastier than any domestic canned sour cherries I've had, though I haven't compared dried Balatons.
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It's very hard to find frozen sour cherries anywhere, even Michigan. You can substitute dry cherries just compensate for the sugar added to them. And don't even try to find unsweetened dried sour cherries because they are tasteless.
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re: GailC
The unsweetened dried tart cherries available at C.J. Olson in Sunnyvale are wonderful, and the furthest thing from tasteless. I'm not a pie baker so I don't know how they work in pies; I use them in savory dishes like Persian rice dishes and for snacking. They have sweetened dried tart cherries too.
I'm a Michigan native and these make me very happy. Now if I could ever find those black sweet cherries they grow near T.C. out here...
Michael
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re: mdg
I'm living in Virginia these days and I never buy sweet cherries here because they just can't compare to Michigan (TC) cherries. It's sad, but also true of the apples here. Michigan is a true fruit basket state.
Are you sure that those dried cherries at C.J. Olson are actually unsweetened? Most dried cherries are dried with some sugar added, unless it specified they are unsweetened they probably have sugar on them. Let me know please because I'm always looking for good unsweetened ones.-
re: GailC
Yes, these are unsweetened. Olson sells both sweetened and unsweetened dried tart cherries. You can order the unsweetened ones at
http://www.cjolsoncherries.com/cherry...
The Santa Clara Valley is one of the world's best areas for growing stone fruit, as the few remaining orchards like Andy's demonstrate. Olson's fresh Bing cherries from the Sunnyvale orchard are my favorite sweet cherries of all, even more so than the Michigan sweet cherries (which I like a lot).
Michael
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I've been wondering about this for a long time. Grew up in Detroit, and we had a Montmorency tree in the back yard. We would freeze about 20 quarts of cherries every summer, and my mom would make pies throughout the year. I've never understood why it's so hard to find frozen sour cherries.
