Spring Means Cherry Cake Weather

or... What to do with that glowing jar of maraschino cherries hiding in the back of the pantry (other than topping bowls of ice cream)

It's still Springtime. I can tell because the bugs are fully activated, the weeds are on steroids, the wild onions are in bloom, and there are still a few cherry trees festooned in their floral finery in our neighborhood. Not many, and not for much longer, but a few nonetheless. Pretty sure the late-bloomers are the Kwanzan variety (one of my favorites). I had meant to post this in March or April when all the other varieties of fruit trees were showing off too, but things were starting to get weird in the world and blogging was not my focus.

We don't have cherry trees in our yard anymore, but we do have a crab-apple tree that came with this house, and when it comes to blossomy spring beauty, it's a close second to the cherry trees. Most of the year it's a nondescript unattractive old thing, showing its previous decades of neglect. For three to four weeks out of each year though (usually in March), it's a real stunner. A profusion of dark pink buds start the show and soon burst into pale pink blossoms that finish off creamy white before dropping their petals, swirling and fluttering to the ground, like springtime snow-flurries, with each passing breeze.

The color of this cake reminds me of those pretty buds and blossoms that every year herald the coming spring. The color is achieved by the inclusion of maraschino cherries and specifically, the "liquid" they live in. I won't go into how very unnatural the color of these jarred cherries is or what non-nutritive chemicals could create such a vivid hue, nor why you might want to avoid ingesting these things too terribly often. I'm a "waste not, want not" type of person, and even though they're not healthy, they are still sort of like food and need to be used if at all possible.

The reason we have a jar of maraschino's in the pantry at all is because of a sweet and wonderful Christmas tradition in my hubby's family. And now I have found the perfect thing to use them for. Don't get me wrong, we've had no problem at all using them to adorn bowls of ice cream every year! But next Christmas when I thank my mother-in-law for another jar of cherries, I will look forward to making this cake again.

When our crab-apple starts to bloom (or the neighbor's cherry trees, or all those darned wild onions, or frankly, whenever I feel like making a pink cake), I'll say, "It looks like Cherry Cake weather!"* and reach into the pantry for that jar of maraschinos, vivid with love, family, and memories.

Cherry Tea Cake

adapted from: here, here, here, and here

ingredients:

1 16-ounce jar maraschino cherries
1 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour (+ 2 Tbsp, reserved)

1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder

a good pinch of salt
2 large eggs

1/2 cup light olive oil
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup maraschino liquid

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a standard 8.5"x 4.5" glass loaf pan.

1. Drain the cherries well, reserving their liquid. Put the drained cherries in a small bowl lined with a couple folded paper towels, set aside.
2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. 
3. In a separate bowl, add the eggs, oil, and the rest of the liquids. Mix well.
4. Combine wet and dry ingredients until just incorporated.
5. Give the cherries a few chops, then toss them with 2 Tbsp flour until coated (this prevents the cherries from sinking to the bottom while it's baking). 
6. Fold the cherries into the batter and pour it into the greased loaf pan. Bake for about 70 minutes (start checking after 50 though, as ovens and pans vary).
7. If you notice the top of the cake getting too dark too early, make it a little hat out of foil and perch it over the top of the pan.
8. Cake is done when it tests clean with a toothpick in the very middle. 
9. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes, then carefully tip it out and finish cooling it on a rack.

My Notes...

• This cake goes together really fast. No mixer needed, just a whisk and a spoon. 
• Almond extract can be substituted for the Vanilla in whole or part if you like. 
• Powdered sugar or cream cheese glaze would look nice over the top of this cake if gifting or taking to a party etc. Save a little bit of the jar liquid to tint the icing pink. I find that the cake is plenty sweet on its own, so I don't bother to frost it if it's just us eating it. 
• The cake can be frozen (unglazed) if wrapped well. 
• You can bake two mini-loaves instead for gifting (bake time will be shorter), or even make pretty pink cupcakes! 
• If you use a metal loaf pan, the baking time may be different. 
• And lastly, if you're sensitive to red food coloring, you'll want to just stay away from this cake altogether.

Happy spring, late bloomers!

–Steph

P.S. This essay would have worked so much better if we still had a cherry tree in our yard (or if I'd managed to post it six weeks ago). But this is me, doing my best with what I've got (and missing my old cherry trees a little also, I think).

*An homage to Truman Capote's short story A Christmas Memory, about fruitcake and family ("It's fruitcake weather!"). If you haven't read it before, do so in November or December for the right ambiance.  

August Wish List and the Letter "S"...

Sun... Not too much. Just enough warmth to remind me that it's summer, but not so much that it makes me long for it to be over. If not for me, then for all our gorgeous green tomatoes just waiting to turn vibrant vitamin-packed shades of red, orange, and burgundy.

Sea... I want to go to the ocean. La Mer. I want to sit and stare at it, and listen to it, and breathe its air. Maybe I'll take a kite. Maybe I won't. I want to come home at the end of the day with that pleasant tiredness that I get just from spending the day near it.

Stone Fruit... Fresh, ripe, deeply scented. Perfumed, even. Fruit with pits. In season. Eaten out of hand. Baked, broiled, grilled. I want to over-indulge in stone-fruits. Eat them with every meal. Before they're gone for the year.*

These recipes are the stuff some of my summer dreams are made of...

Time-less Cherry Cheesecake

When you need a simple and elegant solution for a potluck or even for your own dinner party but don't have enough time. Gather the following items:

• 1 Frozen Cheesecake (pre-sliced if possible)
• 1 can Cherry Pie Filling (the goopy kind)
• Pretty cake plate
• Pretty pie server
• Pretty crystal or ceramic bowl
• Pretty serving spoon

Yes, I repeatedly specified "pretty" serving pieces. That's an important part of this fake. Store-bought foods always always always look better when taken out of their original packaging. By putting the cheesecake on a pedestal with the cherries in a cut glass bowl next to it, it becomes something that is more than the sum of its store-bought parts.

Do this when you know ahead of time that you'll need a dessert but that you won't have the time to spend in the kitchen preparing one. It's best to buy the cheesecake the day before, so it can thaw overnight in the fridge (it's kind of hard to pull off a successful fake when the cheesecake is still frozen in the center).

This really isn't a cost-cutting idea (decent quality cherry pie filling is no bargain), or even a last minute bail-out (due to the frozen-ness), it is primarily a time-saving device. Will everyone know that it's a fake? Certainly. But just like canned white peaches in champagne, they'll all be too busy enjoying it to care!

Variations On A Cherry Muffin

Yep. Using up the fruit before it goes bad. There are a bunch of desserts that I would love to try, but honestly, how many desserts can two people eat? I don't think I want to know the answer to that.

Enter the muffin. It's handy for breakfast (or a snack). It may not be exactly "healthy", but it's probably healthier than a cupcake. You can put almost anything in them. Like fruit no longer at its peak. This base recipe is really easy and goes together really fast.

The finished product is not your average gargantu-cakey-café-muffin, but a modest-sized old-school muffin. The kind Mom might have made, had she made muffins. These particular muffins are headed straight for the freezer. It seems kind of sad (and also irresponsible) to send them off without trying one first. At its best. Warm from the oven. With butter.

Adapted from the Best-Ever Muffins variations on page 87 of the BH&G Homemade Bread Book, 1973. If you don't have it, here's a link to a very similar recipe of theirs online: Better Homes and Gardens Basic Muffin Recipe

Cherry-Blueberry Muffins
Notes: Start with the Blueberry-Lemon Muffin variation. I added a half cup or so of chopped cherries to the cup of blueberries already going in. I didn't really measure either. I didn't measure the lemon zest (I almost never do), just zested a whole small lemon; so there's probably about 1 tablespoon in there. 

The recipe says to dip the tops of the warm muffins in melted butter and then in sugar. Wow. That sounds so good, but since they're going into the freezer I decided to skip that bit. Instead, I just sprinkled some sugar over the top of them before I put them in the oven.

Cherry-Orange-Walnut Muffins
Notes: Combining the Banana-Nut Muffins and the Date-Orange-Nut Muffins recipes, I replaced the banana with a cup or so of chopped cherries. I used about a half cup of chopped walnuts, and I substituted orange juice for the milk.

Cherry Berry Sour Cream Scones

Cherry season is nearing an end and I'm noticing the prices coming down. Time to do some baking. These are the first scones I've ever made using fresh fruit. I usually make scones in the winter when dried fruit is the norm. But when in summer, do as the summer does and make these berry studded treats. The best scones are worked very quickly and baked hot. If you notice that you're taking too long or have them ready to go only to find that you've forgotten to turn on the oven (yep)... pop them into the fridge for 15-20 minutes and then resume.