Ode to Cherries

My husband's Uncle Tim owns a fantastic fruit orchard in Oregon. Every July, he generously disseminates a portion of his cherry harvest amongst the family far and wide. We were the lucky recipients of an extremely large offering of cherries a few days ago. Pictured here is just about half of the care package: My Tim has such sweet memories of helping Uncle Tim during harvest season when he was a young boy. Those days eating the ripe fruit straight from the tree has left him one of the more discerning cherry tasters I've ever known. It becomes quite the challenge to use our bounty in a way that does justice to Tim's favorite fruit. I think this year I finally hit on the winner. After years of trial and error, I'm going out on a limb to say that this is likely the best Cherry Crisp recipe you will find. It comes from testing out recipes from dozens of recipe sites and gathering the bits and pieces we like the best from each. I'm dubbing it after our fabulous cherry benefactor: ------------- Uncle Tim's Cherry Crisp Ingredients: Filling: 6 cups fresh pitted Bing cherries, sliced in half 1 1/4 cup sugar 3 tbsp tapioca 1 tsp almond extract Topping: 1 1/2 c all-purpose flour 3/4 granulated sugar 3/4 cup light brown sugar 1/2 tsp kosher salt 1 cup oatmeal 1/2 pound cold unsalted butter healthy sprinkle cinnamon Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the filling ingredients. Toss to coat and let sit for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the topping ingredients in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the mixture is crumbly and the butter is the size of peas. Pour filling into a 9x13 pan and spread topping evenly over the cherries. Place on a rimmed cookie sheet and bake for 1 hour until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Serve warm or room temperature with ice cream or whipped cream. If you can get your hands on this, all the better. (And yes, it would be worth the shipping.) -------------- I think maybe once my crisp has cooled enough, we'll be enjoying our treat during a family picnic on the peanut's blanket. This last spring I snatched up some "Oh Cherry Oh" fabric from Moda and made a denim-backed blanket for her birthday gift. Today seems like the perfect occasion to serve up its inaugural meal.