Golden Cherry-Cheese Varenikes

The ripest sour cherry popped into the mouth raw—even when heavily sugared—cannot compete with the sweet kind. Just finding a sour cherry requires real detective work. So why bother? Because when they are cooked, sour cherries are unsurpassed. It’s then that their fresh, tart-acid taste leaves their sweet cousins in the dust, fleshy and flat in comparison.

Eastern European Jews relished the bright tangy-sweet taste of sour cherries in preserves for sweetening dark Russian tea and in