Sour Cherry Spoon Sweet
Plilgrims to Mount Athos are often welcomed with various spoon sweets which are made from pure ingredients collected by the monks themselves and have no preservatives.
The sweet sour cherry is one of the most favorite traditional spoon sweets and is mainly prepared in July when fresh sour cherries are in abundance. Here is an authentic monastic recipe for sweet sour cherry which requires less sugar than usual and doesn't burden us with unnecessary calories.
Try this simple monk dessert either on its own during periods of fasting, or accompany it with yogurt or why not your ice-cream with vanilla or cream flavor.
It can also be an excellent raw material for the preparation of other sweet such as cheesecake. In fact, you can also make sour cherry drink by simple diluting the syrup that is left over, a tactic that is very representative of the monastic kitchen, since all raw materials are considered a great blessing and are used to the fullest.
We wash the sour cherries well and remove their pits with the appropriate tool.
We put the cherries, sugar and water in a pan and let them boil.
We simmer for at least 30 minutes until the syrup thickens.
We remove the pot from the heat to stop the boiling and wait five minutes for the temperature to drop a bit.
We pour the sour cherries into sterilized jars and cover with syrup, leaving about 1 cm of space.
We close the jars tightly by tightening the lids and turn them upside down to cool and seal.
If we don't have the special tool for removing the pits, we can use a hairpin.
It would be good to wear gloves when cleaning sour cherries, because they stain the skin very strongly.
