The Cherry Tree
And recipes for sour cherries
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My parents built our childhood home in 1981, back when Kitchener was mostly fields. My mom’s dad planted a sour cherry tree in their backyard when the house was finished. The Cherry Tree was a fixture of my childhood – it grew taller than the house.
As a kid I would climb the cherry tree in a way that would give me a heart attack if I saw my nieces doing the same.
“MARRRRRRRKO!” My mom would shout. They picked names for us that could be shouted from across a farm field, where single letters could be minutes long.
“I’m in the cherry tree!”
“GET FUCKING DOWN FROM DERE! NOW! But pick good cherries on your vay down. No, those too. UP DERE! UP VONE MORE BRANCH! GET DE GOOD CHERRIES BEFORE DE BIRRRRRDS!”
In for a penny, in for a pound of cherries.
“VESSSSNA! GET MARKO ANOTHER ZEHRS BAG!”
You can always tell who grew up in Kitchener because they don’t say grocery bags, they are Zehrs bags. I didn’t know they had another name until I was thirty and I asked someone in Ottawa for a Zehrs bag. They looked at me like I fell out of a tree.
Through the summer I would spend whole days in the cherry tree. If you climbed to the top you could see Mt. Trashmore, which is old garbage dump a few kilometres away. We used to toboggan down the side of it. It’s now called MacLennan Park and it has a splash pad!
Every year it was a race against the birds to get as many cherries as you could. I would eat them from the tree and collect them for my mom to make pita – a Yugoslavian type of strudel, which is sometimes also called burek. But it’s only called burek if it has meat, but that’s only in some parts of the former Yugoslavia, and only some of the time. There are arguments on Reddit. This one food war represents everything good and bad about the Balkans.
My mom called it pita, so that’s what I call it. The recipe is below.
Pita is made with a type of phyllo dough called kore. My mom used to make it in an illegal basement bakery in their garage and sell it all across Ontario. She had a custom laminating rolling machine made for it. When I was old enough to reach a kitchen counter, I was old enough to help make kore, or “make the dough” as my mom said.
“Can we go to the movies this weekend?”
“I MAKE THE DOUGH!”
“Can I go hang out with my friends?”
“I MAKE THE DOUGH!”
“We have no groceries.”
“I MAKE THE DOUGH!”
My mom par-baked kore so it could be frozen. To do this, two pieces of dough are laminated together with vegetable oil between them, rolled out to paper thin sheets the size of an electric griddle, and baked for 30 seconds per side. We would flip the dough by picking it up off the electric griddle with our bare hands. Once cooked, but not brown, it would puff up filled with steam. You would, with your bare hands, immediately remove it and peel the two layers apart so each piece of kore would be even thinner.
By the time I was a teenager I had no feeling left in my fingertips.
She would package these up, a dozen sheets rolled together and frozen. Each roll sold for $5 in the 90s!
We would go on field trips to deliver it to European grocery stores in Hamilton and Vaughan. In a weekend she would sell 300 rolls. She would trade half for deli meats and cured sausages. The rest of the money she would use to take us to Canada’s Wonderland. We would all stuff in her Oldsmobile, with no air conditioning, in the August heat and trek off to Toronto.
“MARRRRRRRKO! CLOSE THE VINDOW! YOU CAN OPEN IT TWO FINGERRRS! I GET THE DRAFT IN MY NECK! MARKO, YOU ARE KILLING ME, MARKO!”
I had no feeling left in my fingers to adequately measure the force of the wind. But we did get to go to Wonderland, so what did it matter? I was eight.
The year after my mom died, the cherry tree went with her. The tree was 30 years old and had become quite broken. My dad and I decided to plant new trees, which would we keep smaller for easier fruit collection. We put in two apples, a sour cherry, and a black cherry. The apples didn’t take but the cherry trees thrived.
My dad was never into gardening but he loves the fruit trees. Every few weeks through summer I get phone calls.
“Come get cherries.”
“Come get tomatoes.”
“Come get grapes.”
“Come get pears.”
My dad is a man of few words. Putting a sweet cherry beside the sour cherry turned out to be a genius solution to our bird problem. The birds would snack on the black cherries, enjoying their delicious sweetness, and then try a sour cherry.
I imagine the birds shouting “PUH!” like my mom would when she ate something she didn’t like and spat it on the ground. “PUH! PUH! PUH!”
This means we only get a few handfuls of black cherries. I didn’t get any this year, my dad ate them all right off the tree in a race against the birds.
These trees are too small for me to climb, so my dad brings out a garden hoe to pull down the branches for me.
“Get this branch, this has the good ones. No, get these. Get all of them. Do you want the birds to have them?”
I gave up after collecting 23lbs of cherries. I left half on the tree for the birds.
My nieces used to help me harvest the cherries, but Amelie is a teenager now and Emma is an adult. Their priorities are to take moody selfies for Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok or BeReal or who knows what else. I think my mom would have broken Amelie’s phone when she refused to help.
“I’LL SHOW YOU TIKTOK! THREE! TWO! OUTSIDE!”
My mom would have been TikTok famous and/or in jail, like a combination of Rhubarb Lady, George Constanza, and a conspiracy theorist with an Eastern European accent.
All this is to say, cherries feel like a core part of my personal identity. Our pear tree and grapes are similarly fruitful, but pears are my dad’s thing. The cherry tree was always mine.
Cherries are a seasonal fruit, you really can’t get them past cherry season. Sour cherries don’t keep well, so there’s an even shorter season for them.
Last year I bought a cherry pitting machine (see demo video). If you’re a crazy cherry person like me it will be the best $30 you spend all year. I also made a few videos about cherries on YouTube:
One of my biggest regrets about my mom’s death is that I didn’t have her write down her recipes down before she died. She never wrote anything down, or if she did it was in a hybrid of Cyrllic and Latin block type only she could read, in blue pen, in her burgundy notebook.
“Red like the Serbian flag. Vhy do you have a yellow notebook? Do you vant them to think you’re... Romanian?! Vhy do you have checkers on your shirt? Do you vant them to think you’re… Croatian?!”
I’ve only ever lived in Canada, a multicultural nation, so I never understood these comments. The closest I can imagine is if someone thought I was… American.
PUH!
My mom was a terrible cook, but her pita was famous in town. My teachers would ask her to bring it to parent/teacher night. She would make it for weddings and funerals. Her most famous flavour was pita sa sirom, it’s phyllo pastry stuffed with feta cheese. You can also make it in layered form called gibanica which is taller, heartier, and more filling. Gibanica is baked in a large round enamelled baking pan called a tepsia (imagine a 12–15” cake pan). Sometimes she would add spinach (like Greek spanakopita, but better.) Sometimes she made pita with apples, or cherries, but my mom never made the meat-filled burek.
Last summer I spent a few weeks trying to recreate these recipes from memory. I don’t expect you to make kore from scratch, but if you do you should let me know! You can use store-bought Greek-style phyllo dough – but phyllo is drier and flakier, where kore is just as thin but chewy, crispy, moist, and sweet. German-style strudel dough is a bit thicker and doughier. Whichever dough you choose to use it will be delicious.
Recipes
You can find last year’s cherry recipes on my website and on YouTube:
You can also make Marci’s Saturday Scones with sour cherries and orange zest, which I did last week, and then I had to give all the scones away because I wanted to eat them all in one sitting. Use 1 cup of pitted sour cherries and the zest of 1 orange instead of cheddar and chives. They are incredible.
Kore, Yugoslavian phyllo dough
You do not need to make your phyllo dough. You should just buy frozen phyllo dough. But if you are a crazy person, like me, you can make your own kore. It’s fun (for me). It takes up your entire counter to make. You will feel so accomplished. And the taste/texture is incomparable to store-bought phyllo.
Ingredients
500g | 4-1/4 cups flour
250ml | 1 cup water
50ml | 3 tbsp olive oil + more for rolling
10g | 1 tbsp kosher salt
Method
Make the dough: Mix ingredients together in a medium bowl until combined, then transfer to a counter. Knead for around 10 minutes until the dough is soft and smooth. Transfer back to the bowl, cover, and rest for 20 minutes.
Divide and rest: Divide into 12 pieces, 65g / 4 tablespoons each. Round into a ball and allow to rest for 20 minutes.
Smush and rest: Oil your hands, and sprinkle some oil on the dough balls. Smush two dough balls together, creating a 3” wide circle. The dough will begrudgingly stick together. Allow to rest for 20 minutes.
Roll: Roll the dough out to 12x16”. It’s a bit weird, but rolling on an oiled countertop makes it a lot easier (instead of a floured countertop).
To use immediately:
Separate the dough and follow the assembly and baking instructions for pita, gibanica, ham snacks for one, or any other recipe that requires phyllo dough.
If the dough tears as you are separating it, that’s okay – you can patch it back together. In most recipes where phyllo is used it is layered and stacked, so you will be able to patch most holes.
To bake for later:
Place the rolled out dough onto a flat griddle. Bake for 30 seconds, then flip. Bake for another 30 seconds, it should puff up in the middle. Remove from the griddle and immediately separate the two dough pieces.
Stack the dough and once cooled roll up, wrap in plastic, and store in the freezer. Defrost overnight in the fridge before using.
Pita with sour cherry (pita sa višnjama)
My mom would only use sour cherries and sugar, so leave everything else out if you want to try her recipe. Make both and compare them. Ignore us both, change all the ingredients, and leave a comment on all your swaps like this is the New York Times.
Recipes are only ideas and this is mine.
Ingredients
500g | 1lb frozen phyllo dough, thawed (or 1 recipe kore)
500g | 1lb | 2 cups sour cherries, pitted
200g | 1 cup sugar
3g | 1 tsp salt
5g orange zest (1 orange, optional)
30g orange juice (1 orange, optional)
5g vanilla extract (or one packet of vanilla sugar, optional)
60g | 4 tbsp butter, melted (or grapeseed oil, but butter leads to an airier, flakier texture)
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 350°F.
Make the filling: Place the cherries, sugar, salt, orange zest, orange juice, and vanilla extract in a bowl. Toss to coat and set aside.
Assemble the rolls: Lay out 1 sheet of phyllo dough. Sprinkle with a handful (2 tbsp) of cherries and 1 tsp of melted butter. Add another sheet of phyllo, sprinkle with another handful of cherries. Spread the cherries out, so that each layer fills in the gaps between cherries on each layer. Add another 1 tsp of butter. Repeat for a total of 4 layers of phyllo and 4 layers of cherries.
Roll: If your phyllo dough is 12x16” you want to roll the long side (so you end up with a 16” long roll).
Transfer to a baking sheet and sprinkle the top with granulated sugar. Repeat with the remaining phyllo dough. You can allow the rolls to touch, or if using a tepsia, spiral the rolls.
Repeat for a total of 3 rolls.
Bake: Bake for 45–60 minutes until puffed and golden and crisp on the outside. There may be cherry juice bubbling on the outside.
Serve: Slice into 2” pieces. Serve warm.
Pita with apple (pita sa jabukama)
My mom never made just one pita, she would make six dozen. (All of my friends are saying “oh it all makes sense now.”)
Because of this she would use a 5kg bag of apples. I vividly remember her wringing the apple juice out into a large bowl and then we would all drink the apple juice over the kitchen sink. Apple was made year-round, where cherry was only made in the summer.
Ingredients
500g | 1lb frozen phyllo dough, thawed (or 1 recipe kore)
500g | 1lb of apples, peeled and grated
100g | 1/2 cup of sugar
3g | 1 tbsp cinnamon
Follow the directions listed for pita with cherries.
Cheese pie (gibanica sa sirom)
“Can you ask your mom to make cheese pie?” was said to me more than any other phrase in my childhood.
This is how my mom would make it. At least, in the way I remember it and filtered by the food I like as an adult.
You can also use this filling to make pita sa sirom (pita with cheese) by following the assembly steps in the pita recipe above. Cheese pie has a dense, fluffy, hearty texture – you can slice it and it will hold its shape. It’s a meal all on its own. Make it as pita will create a lighter, airier texture that’s better as a snack.
It’s great served with an herby salad with a sharp salad dressing.
Ingredients
2lbs of phyllo dough (2x recipe kore)
400g | 1lb of feta cheese, crumbled
400g | 1lb of cottage cheese or ricotta
450g | 9 Eggs
250g butter, melted
For a traditional experience, track down a tepsia – a 12” round enamelled pan with 2” high sides. You can usually buy them at European grocery stores. Otherwise use a 9x13” pan for 2” tall sides, like you would for lasagna.
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 350°F.
Make the filling: Crack all the eggs into a large bowl and beat them with a fork until homogenous. Crumble the feta cheese into the mix. Add the cottage cheese. Mix with a fork until combined but lumpy. Set aside.
Butter the pan: Butter your 13x9” pan (or tepsia).
For your first layer: Place a piece of phyllo dough flat across the bottom of the pan so you have a solid base to lift from. You may need to use 2 or 3 pieces. Try to have some of the phyllo come up the sides of the pan.
Add a few tablespoons of the cheese/egg mixture, distributing it across the pan and leaving gaps between the dollops. Drizzle 2 tbsp of butter across the phyllo.
For your additional layers: You will use 2–3 pieces of phyllo per layer. You want to ruffle the phyllo as you place it, trying not to smush or move the cheese. Try to have the phyllo overlap as it comes up the sides of the pan. Dollop cheese and drizzle butter. Repeat until you have used all of the cheese filling, around 4 or 5 layers.
For your final layer: You want to make an attractive set of ruffles then brush the top with any remaining butter.
Bake: Bake for 1 hour until puffed, bubbling, and golden brown.
Serve: Cool for 10–15 minutes before slicing in the pan. Serve warm. But you will also eat it cold from the fridge in the middle of the night (also great).
Ham and cheese snack
When my mom would make kore, I would often tip-toe down the stairs to the garage and sheepishly ask if she would make me a snack with ham and cheese. She would place a sheet of kore on the griddle, place 1–2 ripped up slices deli ham and 1–2 ripped up Kraft singles on one side, then fold it up into a square and cook it on both sides. You would get a crispy outside, layers of dough and cheese inside. You have to eat it hot, burning your fingers and tongue on lava cheese.
If I was allowed to eat snacks (my Invisalign prevents me from having joy), I would go make one right now.
If your teeth allow you to have snacks and you have extra phyllo dough from the recipes above, I highly recommend you make this. You might as well buy an extra pack of phyllo dough to keep a dozen of these in the freezer for when you’re feeling sad.
I love a good Kraft single – well, I buy Black Diamond slices because they don’t put corn in their cheese – but same same. If you want to use bougie cheese, go ahead, but this is a snack for the child in your heart. Embrace the singles life. And I’m not writing this out as a recipe.
You put ham and cheese in phyllo, you fold it, you cook it. The quantities and level of doneness all exist in your heart. I believe in you!
Just got this, scrolled to see if you included the pita with sour cherries recipe, 🎉