Rainier cherries are the very sweet offspring of sweet-tart Bing cherries. If you can't find Rainier cherries, you can substitute the Bing variety, but you'll likely need to add a little sugar to the fruit filling to balance the tartness.
This was delicious, and so easy! I halved the recipe, and used 1/8 tsp. almond extract instead of the chopped almonds. And I put it in ceramic ramekins instead of a cast iron skillet. Scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on top, and... yum! Now I'm going to start stockpiling Rainiers in the freezer since the season is so very short. I want to have this all summer!
This was okay, but there's too much cornstarch and the fruit winds up a bit gummy. I'd definitely use half the cornstarch next time. At the cost of rainier cherries, I actually wish I'd just pitted them and served them fresh with ice cream. The pitting tip is helpful, but I prefer to just press the flat blade of a big knife against the cherry; if you hit the cherry, it will become a bit mushy.
I admit, I added other fruit I had around, including apriots and blueberries, so it wasn't entirely cherries. I would say reduce the lemon juice and cornstarch and let the fruit speak for itself :)
This was great! Other than pitting the cherries, it came together really easily. My mom was shocked when she tried it - she had only ever eaten sour cherry desserts. And she loved it!
Big hit at my house !! Easy to make once I purchased a cherry pitter.
Really love the tip to speed-up the pitting. Did the prep work for both components in the afternoon. Only Bings available locally, good but not very sweet so added a small bit of sugar. Used the mini-processor for the crumble mixture, then kept it in the fridge til ready to assemble. Just before putting it together, added the corn starch to the cherries. Served with a small portion of sugar-free vanilla ice cream. Very good.
I thought this recipe was wonderful. The filling was perfect and I loved that it didn't have any added sugar. It was a little tart, but the sweetness of the topping and some ice cream made it delicious. I would change nothing about this recipe. I would make this again and again.
Seriously...yum. This was excellent. I found Rainier cherries in bulk at Costco so they weren't that expensive. This crumble was sooooo good and really easy to make! I would make this for company in a heartbeat.
I, too, had difficulty finding this to review, so glad to see it wasn't just me. After paying way too much for Rainiers in Honolulu, I also mixed with Bings and think it was just an ok dessert. Too much sugar for the topping. Also, after less than 15 min in our tropical heat, my butter was WAY too warm, so topping was less a crumble than a fine coat of sugar and flour...my bad! However, it was good enough to enjoy by itself, or with sour cream, yogurt (fresh or frozen) or ice cream, it's even better. May try again with all Bings and not take the butter out until time to mix it in!
I imagine that others have tried to rate this but it didn't show up in a search until I Googled it. As for the recipe, this was very good but I didn't find the Rainier cherries to be all that sweet, so I will probably use the less pricey Bings or something else next time. I wasn't willing to spend $12 on cherries so I bought 1 pound, cut the recipe to 1/3 and prepared it in four 6-oz ramekins. I also used oat flour instead of all-purpose. The juices absorbed the crumble topping during baking so it didn't turn out "layered" like the picture, but the flavor was still very good and could probably even do with less sugar next time.
