Are these sweet cherries (very firm) or tart cherries, also known as pie cherries? I grew up on a cherry farm in Michigan and love these tasty, fragile fruits! Sweet cherries can be washed, sorted, dried off and frozen to be used as a cool freezer-to-mouth treat later. For use in baking either will need to be pitted first. It's a messy job and cherry juice permanently stains, so do it outside if at all possible and wear your grubbiest clothing. Inserting the rounded end of a hairpin and popping out the pit works as well as anything unless you have an actual cherry pitter, and most of those aren't all that great. After that your best bet is to freeze them in freezer containers or Ziploc freezer bags. You'll be adding sugar to them--got a red and white checkered Better Homes and Gardens cookbook?; that should tell you how much, or I can look it up--and possibly ascorbic acid to prevent darkening. If you're an experienced home canner and have the equipment then that also works well, but you'll lose some of the color into the juice. Cherries degrade at the speed of light so you need to do this immediately. Be sure to give your cherries a good bath in cold water before starting to remove spray insecticides and dirt. (If the grower hasn't followed a fairly rigorous spray schedule, the cherries may be wormy.) When you're all done wash your hands with straight lemon juice to remove or at least lighten the stains. If I can be of further help feel free to IM or PM me.
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