Sometimes yogurt is just… well… boring. Come on, admit it. It’s healthy and does all these wonderful things for you and for whatever reason, my lactose intolerant body doesn’t mind small doses of it.
But, it’s boring. It just is. Despite it’s wonderfulness and all, it needs a kick in the pants to make it enjoyable on a regular basis. I’ve tried to give suggestions on ways to zip it up with sweet chili sauce and cinnamon vanilla.
But, how about cherry vanilla compote?? I mean… it’s like putting cherry vanilla soda on your yogurt.
Well, ok, not it’s not like that at all but it is very tasty.
Actually, cherry vanilla compote is tasty, regardless of whether or not yogurt is involved. It just is.
Cherries are hands down, my favourite fruit. No ifs, and, or buts. I’m a cherry glutton which never bodes well down the road…
Cherries are the fruit I always associate with summer. As a kid, my parents would by flats of them on visits to my Grandma in the Okanagan – the prime cherry growing region here. My mom would always make cherry jam and for some reason, it never really set properly (all her other jams did) and so I would love it, all syrupy, on pancakes and on my toast, where it would soak in with the butter… mmmm… and she made pretty good cherry pie too.
I wish the season wasn’t so short, or that cherries weren’t so expensive, or that it wasn’t so hard to find Okanagan cherries in the lower mainland when they are no further away than the Washington cherries that always seem to be on sale everywhere. They’re always sweeter and riper.
I did find a bag of them one afternoon and snapped them up, to eat by hand while I read (I always eat fruit or cookies when I read.. is anyone else like this? It’s a “thing” that I have…). Unfortunately, when I pulled them out of the fridge that evening and popped my hand in the bag, I was greeted by mush. Half the cherries were over ripe and going bad or had split. The other half were living precariously on the edge.
And so, my book got pushed to the side and I waded through the whole bag and saved what I could and decided to make cherry vanilla compote with what I could salvage.
It turned out fabulously well. Perfect on yogurt, waffles, and even bread with a little cream cheese! Because cherries are so sweet on their own and produce so much juice, this recipe is much lower on sugar than most compotes, which is nice. It works well without vanilla as well but I like the little extra depth of flavour it gives.
- 2 cups of pitted cherries chopped in half
- ⅛th cup of sugar
- 1tbsp of water
- 1 tbsp of cornstarch
- ¼ tsp of vanilla extract (you can also use almond extract but drop it down to ⅛tsp)
- combine cherries, water, sugar, cornstarch (sift cornstarch in if you can - I use a tea strainer!) and heat in a small saucepan over med heat.
- heat to a boil
- cook at a boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly (make sure the cornstarch is not lumpy - that's why I use the tea strainer!)
- remove from heat and add in vanilla.
- stir well
- serve cool or warm
Food Photography Tips
I have nothing to say about the photos except that I was an idiot and didn’t shoot with a tripod and they are not sharp AT ALL. This is especially noticeable with something like a compote.
Don’t be dumb like I am. Use a tripod when you shoot with macro lens or have low light. Really. You think it’ll be fine but it just never ever is. It never, ever is…
** I haven’t forgotten the Before And After posts. Just been a bit hectic and awfully hot to sit down and to a tutorial post. But there are more in the pipe coming soon!
Cherries are one of the best things about summer, in my opinion. Your compote looks delicious, and timely, as my cousin is coming into town tomorrow with buckets of sour cherries for me. So excited!
Now I am sad that I ate 1.4 million cherries yesterday, and didn’t save a single one for cherry vanilla compote.
Sigh.
(I love your photos despite the fact that you didn’t use a tripod. Because they are wicked awesome.)
Just a tip on the cherries – you can find Okanagan cherries at Santa Barbara on the Drive in season, but for cheap, bulk OK cherries, check craigslist. Seriously! People will often deliver a flat or few as well! It’s my best cherry tip.
Thank you! I might make a stop on the Drive on my way home tonight! I know it’s the tail end of the season but maybe I’ll find some good one. And I would never in a million years have thought of Craig’s list. What a great tip!
I am always too lazy to use a tripod… but you are right, I should.
Cherries are one fruit I just don’t care about. I eat a handful every year, and I never get warm with them.
I think the photos look wonderful. The compote looks great and I love that the recipe is not difficult.
P.S. I always eat when I’m into a good book too.
oooh I wish I had seen this a few days ago! my mom and I froze a bunch of cherries that were going soft because we couldn’t quite decide what to do with them.
I grew up in kelowna with many cherry trees on our property so a HUGE part of my childhood summers was diligently picking cherries, pitting cherries, eating cherries, squeezing cherry juice up our noses and then running to tell our mom that we had nose bleeds.
Then we moved and I learned that in Alberta cherries don’t just rain from the skies.. they’re expensive and seasonal and there was *no way* my mom was going to pay those prices for something that we tried to give away to every person that visited. (that was years ago, we just cough up the money now for the sweet sweet BC cherries)
I’m pinning this recipe so that I can remember to use it for when we pull the cherries out of the freezer!!
Oh I LOVE BC cherries. We’re lucky enough that we always head to my in-laws around August which is prime cherry season, and their neighbour has this amazingly prolific cherry tree. Aditi and I had so many cherries to eat… it didn’t bode well for either of us 😉
I brought back some with me to freeze, so I can remember summer. We also picked millions (yes, it felt like millions!) of sour cherries off my neighbour’s tree too, so its going to be pies, jams galore around here! Would this recipe work with sour cherries, you think? I’d love to try it out.
PS – The pictures are pretty cool! And the third one is really hunger inducing!
Ah! I agree. Yogurt can be boring, but not with something as bright and vibrant as those cherries on top! This is a beautiful compote. Thank you for sharing with me!
Love, love LOVE cherries. Great recipe. Staccato cherries are now my favourate. Late summer cherries, with a crunch.
Only problem with cherries is that orchardists sprays pesticide an average of 13 times per year on a crop. Plus they are waxed. Don’t eat too many!!!!
Just happen to have a bunch of cherries and will do this recipe for sure, thanks for your relatively easy and time saving recipe..:-)