Dessert contest yields yummy treats
Diane Matecki can't resist picking Rainier cherries from a bowl and eating them until the plump, blushed orbs have disappeared.
But she knew that favorite way of eating cherries wouldn't cut the mustard for the Daily Herald/Tin Fish restaurant Verry Cherry Dessert Contest. So the Wheaton woman turned to a favorite family recipe.
Her Chocolate Cherry Creams won over the palates of the judges and won Matecki the top prize in the contest.
"I like the real dark Bing cherries for this recipe," Matecki said. The recipe combines freshly whipped cream, chocolate shavings and ripe dark cherries into a sinfully creamy dessert.
"My husband and I travel a lot and wherever I travel I buy a cookbook," she said. Her recipe inspiration came from a book she picked up one year at the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City, Mich.
"We make this all different ways. When my daughter Clara makes it, she does chunkier chocolate and adds a bit of cherry juice to make it pink," she said. If her travels take her to San Francisco, she brings Ghirardelli chocolate from the source to grate into the cream.
Gloria Heilman favors tart cherries for her winning recipe, Gloria's Cherry Dessert. The dessert highlights cherries and an oatmeal cake with a crumble topping.
"I grew up in Sturgeon Bay (Wis.); there are lots of cherry trees up there," she said. "Door County cherries are the best."
Heilman's love of cherries prompted her and her sons (5 and 7 at the time) to plant a cherry tree in the backyard of their Palatine home 21 years ago.
"The birds this year have devoured all my cherries," Heilman laments, "I can't even make my dessert with my own cherries."
The hot weather that's hovered over the Midwest this summer means time is running out to create the winning recipes using Michigan cherries. Door County cherries, however, should come into their own in August.
Peter Klein grows eight varieties of the fruit at Seedling Orchard in South Haven, Mich. The season has been shorter, but the cherries sweeter because of the heat, Klein said.
He likes using tart, bright red cherries, like Montmorency, for pies and the sweeter dark purple Bing-style or the lighter, yellow tinged fruit, like Rainier, for casual eating.
It ends up that those tart cherries don't just taste good -- they're good for you. No matter if they're fresh, frozen, dried or canned.
Recent studies by Michigan State University show that tart cherries contain more disease-fighting antioxidants than any other fruit, according to the Cherry Marketing Institute.
They also contain quercitin, a compound that seems to release histamines to fight allergies and act as an anti-inflammatory that could help with arthritis pain, said Kate Slate, food editor at Hallmark magazine.
"It's not like if you eat a cherry bar, and not take your allergy meds, you'll be fine," Slate said. "They haven't specified a quantitative amount, but every little bit helps."