The people of the Yakima Valley have a complicated relationship with fruit. Coined “The Fruitbowl of the Nation”, Yakima today remains the leading county in Washington State for the production of apples, sweet cherries, pears, melons, and the nation’s leader for hop production, according to Washington State University. This industry runs the Valley.

Visitors often compare the golden rolling hills, covered with trees bearing apples, cherries, chestnuts, to those of Southern Spain, which gives the locals something to laugh at. The cascading orchards, which are omnipresent in the Yakima Valley, represent a variety of things to the locals. For one, they are just plain charming. In the fall, they paint the desert landscape with hues of orange and yellow. The snow blankets the orchards and surrounding hills in the winter for all to see. The pink blossoms come springtime, and ripe ruby cherries come summertime. Between those peak moments, the rolling hills of orchards glow from sprinklers tossing a protective layer of ice during the colder months and a cooling mist in the hotter months; branches wave from the whirling windmills that keep the buds from freezing or the fruit from splitting. During the hottest months, the irrigated orchards also protect the nearby residents, my family included, from the perennial wildfires. In colder months, the windmills rattle nearby windows and wake up sleepy residents.

During a year of mild weather, the sight of the blossoming fruit trees gives solace: there will be steady work. For the many Mexican immigrants, H2A workers, and longtime Yakima locals, any threat to the amount of fruit to pick, sort, pack, and ship off means a threat to livelihoods. This is a problem that may grow in severity as the climate changes. Most young people in the valley grew up with stories of their parents working in the packing warehouses. Today, those once-a-right-of-passage jobs in the warehouses can be harder to come by, with colder-than-usual springs leaving fewer quality cherries for summer picking and early-summer heatwaves charring the crop right before it can be picked. But when the crops are good, there is work and fruit to enjoy. To teenagers who, like myself, snuck too many cherries off the assembly line and into their mouths while working in the packing facilities, the sight of such fruit after work can feel akin to way too much of a good thing. Since it has been a full year since I last ate more than my fair share of Skeena cherries, I decided to befriend the little fruit once again.

Skeena is a cherry jam-packed with sugar, with mild acidity, rich color, and tangy aroma. This flavor profile I believe makes it best suited for sweet rather than savory. On the dessert menu this summer was a large tub of cherry-chocolate chip ice cream, inspired by Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, and a rustic cherry galette. The cherries used were exclusively Skeena cherries that my family gleaned from the neighboring orchards, but literally any sweet cherry will do. The recipes follow. 

 

Rustic Cherry Galette

Ingredients

• 12-inch round chilled pie dough (mine had a dash of cinnamon in it) 
•  3 cups sweet cherries, stemmed and pitted (mine were frozen, so I thawed and drained them; halved or not-halved… up to your aesthetic liking) 
•  1/3 cup brown sugar (56 grams) 
•  2 tablespoons flour 
•  1 tablespoon lemon juice 
• A pinch of salt 

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 190 C (375 F). 
• Roll out chilled pie dough. It does not need to be perfect. My dough was crumbly, so I pressed pieces of the dough together in my pie dish. It worked just fine. Baking a galette on parchment paper in a sheet pan is the traditional way, but I went for a pie dish to reduce waste.
• In a large bowl, gently combine cherries, 1/3 cup brown sugar (56 grams), flour, lemon juice, and salt.
• Place your cherry filling onto the center of the dough, leaving enough room to steal some dough from the side of the pie dish or sheet pan to fold over the cherry filling,about 5 centimeters. Sprinkle the visible crust with sugar or an egg-wash for added glossiness.
• Bake at 190 C (375 F) for 40-50 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. Who needs a “Euro Summer” now that you gave a homemade cherry galette?

 

Cherry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Equipment

• Ice Cream Maker (I used Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker)
• Sieve
• Stand Mixer (I used Kitchen Aid)

Ingredients

*I recommend All Recipes for any measurement conversions that you wish to do 

• 1 1/2 lbs cherries (I used frozen, pitted cherries, which made the mix redder than you use fresh cherries) 
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk  (363 grams)
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream (480 grams)
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar (250 grams)
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or imitation vanilla)
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips (120 grams) (I used semi-sweet chunks and cut them up) 
• A pinch of salt

 

Prep Cherries

• Pit your cherries.
• Add 1 lb (0.45 kg) of pitted cherries to a small saucepan, and add 1/4 cup (50 grams) of sugar. Let this sit for 30 minutes to macerate. 
• Roughly chop the remaining 1/2 lb (0.22 kg) of cherries and set aside. 

Custard Base

• Add milk to a 3 quart pot and heat on medium low, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. 
• Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks with 1 cup sugar.
• When the milk is heated to 90.5 C (195 F), add it to the egg/sugar mix.
• Transfer this mixture back to the pot and continue to cook over a medium heat. Whisk, whisk, whisk until it is thickened! If you don’t whisk constantly you may scramble your eggs.
• Cover the custard with plastic and cool in the fridge for 2-3 hours.

Cherry Sauce 

• After the 30 minute maceration, add lemon juice to the cherries and cook in a saucepan over medium heat (approximately 30 minutes) until a syrup begins to form. 
• Pour the mixture into a sieve over a bowl to separate the cooked cherries from cherry sauce. Keep both. 

Finale

• Once the custard has cooled, add heavy whipping cream, the aforementioned cherry sauce, vanilla extract, and pinch of salt. Whisk well until it’s all incorporated.
• Add the mixture to a chilled ice cream churn and set the machine to churn for 20-25 minutes until it has a soft serve consistency.
• Add chopped cherries, cooked cherries, and chocolate chips, and any other final additives to churn. Return the mixture to the ice cream maker and churn for another 15 minutes. 
• Transfer to a freezer-safe container, cover, and place in the freezer for at least 4 hours.

WORDS: Frances Ballew