Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Mon cherry amour

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Cherry season is upon us and while I'm sure most of you would rather eat them as they are, crisp, juicy and straight from a bowl (or from a tree if you're lucky), I urge you to try this recipe. Even if it's 40C outside and the last thing on your mind is baking. It honestly takes no time at all to make. You just do some mixing, pouring, scattering and finally devouring copious amounts of these "black beauties".
A few weeks ago I was introduced to what I think was a new kind of cherry (investigation in process), somewhere between a black cherry and a sour cherry, deep red, a tad softer than your regular cherry and with some much needed sourness thrown into the mix. Upon returning from the market the two of us finished off almost the entire contents of a 7 litre basket in one sitting. When I returned next week for seconds and possibly thirds, the cherries in question where nowhere to be found. So I settled for these black cherries, which are almost as delicious but a lot easier to sacrifice for treats such as these cake squares, maybe pickled cherries or even some luscious, silky jam.
This is the stuff summer dreams are made of, along with lemony ice tea, a cozy porch and this song.

Black cherry cake squares

Ingredients:

3 whole eggs
350 ml full fat yogurt
250 ml sugar
100 ml vegetable oil
1 tbsp baking flower
1 tbsp vanilla extract
500 ml all purpose flour
500 g pitted black cherries

Preheat oven to 375C.
In a bowl mix well eggs, sugar and yogurt. Add oil, baking powder, vanilla and mix well. Finally add flour and mix until just combined. Spread batter in a 9"X13" metal baking pan, lined with baking paper. Scatter cherries over the batter and bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar, cut into large slices and serve while still warm. Or not. Either way, you'll be happy. I promise.

2 comments:

Simones Kitchen said...

My favorite cherries are the ones hardest to find here; rainier cherries or white cherries. For some reason they are not sold here , but they are just too good to use in anything really...

Ash said...

I've been dying to make something like this!!
But with this heat I haven't done much baking.. well none at all really. I might just need to make this even in this heat!!