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Posts Tagged ‘cherries’

  1. Chocolate Cherry Layer Cake

    March 18, 2015 by sarah

    Sometimes a cake has to made for the sheer beauty of the thing. Don’t get me wrong; flavour is still my primary aim but sometimes it is nice to luxuriate in the beauty of a cake before devouring it. And this cake has it in spades. The delicate pink icing and filling contrasting with the dark brown moist cake and the cherries on the top. Like a cute black forest gateau.

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    ‘I wandered hungry and alone

    Downstairs to the kitchen

    Where upon I came across

    A recipe for a cherry chocolate cake.

    It was baked and made and iced

    And I drowned in the beauty of the cake I beheld.’

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    Chocolate Cherry Cake

     

    225g butter at room temperature
    225g caster suagr
    175g plain flour
    50g cocoa powder
    2 teaspoons baking powder
    1/2 teaspoon fine salt
    5 medium eggs
    200ml greek yogurt or cream or buttermilk
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    Handful (about 50g) of sour dried cherries

    Cherry jam, preferably sour cherry
    Swiss meringue buttercream (recipe here), add some cherry puree made from blended frozen cherries
    Cherries in alcohol for decorating, reserving some of the syrup/alcohol.

    Preheat the oven to 180 ºC/160 ºC fan. Grease and line the base of two 20cm/8″ sponge tins.

    Beat together the butter and sugar until creamed well. Sift over the dry ingredients. Beat together the wet ingredients to break up the eggs then add this to the bowl. Beat all together until well mixed, scraping down the sides of the bowl a few times. Fold in the dried cherries and then pour the batter into the prepared tins, trying to divide it equally.

    Cook for 30-35 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. While the cakes are cooking, make a cherry flavoured syrup by heating the cherry syrup or alcohol base with some extra sugar to make it syrupy. Allow the cakes to cool for 10 minutes in the tins then brush over this syrup. After half an hour, take the cakes out of the tins and allow to cool fully on cooling wracks.

    Assemble the cake with some cherry jam as the filling and pipe the pink tinged buttercream on top. Decorate with the reserved preserved cherries, or fresh cherries if they are in season.

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  2. Cherry Clafouti

    October 9, 2014 by sarah

    This is a recipe that I made way back when it was still summer but some how got shunted down the list of blog articles, lost in time. Until now.

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    Have I ever mentioned that cherries are my favourite fruit? Well you know now; they are. I don’t mind how they come and even artificial cherry flavourings and sweeties are fine by me. Tart sour dried cherries have got to be my absolute favourite but since finding them in Seattle, I have not found any in this country that are quite as sour and tangy. Anyone found any? I am willing to be a taster for them!

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    Recipe adapted from Raymond Blanc ‘Foolproof French Cookery’. You can substitute other fruit for the cherries – I made a very tasty fig clafouti last weekend (substitute almond essence for the vanilla extract).

    Cherry Clafouti

    500g fresh cherries, stoned
    2 tablespoon caster sugar
    2 tablespoon kirsch
     
    100g plain flour
    a pinch a salt
    3 whole eggs plus extra yolk
    6 tablespoon caster sugar (about 75g)
    1/2 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
    400ml milk/cream mixture (whatever you have in the fridge)
    75g unsalted butter
     
    Mix the cherries with the sugar and kirsch and set aside for a couple of hours for the flavours to intensify.
    Prepare the baking dish (china or cast iron, about 20cm diameter, 5cm deep) by rubbing generously with butter and then sprinkling in some caster sugar to form a lovely crush on the clafouti.
    Preheat the oven to 180 ºC/fan 160 ºC.
    Make the batter by putting the flour and salt in a large bowl, make a well in the centre and add the eggs, sugar and vanilla. With a whisk, slowly incorporate the flour into the egg mixture until smooth. Pour in the milk/cream. Alternatively use a hand blender to mix.
    Melt the butter (microwave is easiest) and then beat into the batter.
    Mix the cherries and any juices into the batter and pour the whole lot into the baking dish.
    Bake for 30-35 minutes until just set. Serve warm or cool but not hot or ice cold from the fridge.

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  3. Cherries, mummm, mummm!

    December 7, 2013 by sarah

    You might guess from this title that cherries are my favourite fruit; as they are, jammed, cooked in a clafouti, made into ice-cream, even cherry flavour sweats. This year a very sick tree in the back garden managed to produce a kilogram of the most delicious sour cherries I’ve ever had. I made them into jam (which won a first in the local show) which is amazing on toast or swirled into plain yogurt or spread over a chocolate cake. Sadly the tree had to be removed because it was completely rotten in the core and branches had broken off in the past. RIP cherry tree.

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  4. Black Forest Cupcakes

    October 20, 2013 by sarah

    Wow, I didn’t realise it was coming up for a month since I last posted. I’ve been a busy girl as you will tell from the posts I put up over the next few weeks. I’ve had a full on push with my studies as I am away for two weeks of the month in November. I need to be ahead so I don’t spend the holiday worrying about how far behind I am. My second major project up until now has been finishing a scrapbook for a holiday I went on eight years ago – more about that in the next post. But I have found some time for making things and these are the Black Forest Cupcakes I made for the head nurse’s baby shower.

    What is there not to like about chocolate, cherries and cream? I can’t find a reason. Because I had to take these to work, real whipped cream wouldn’t work (no time to pipe fresh and if I had piped at home in the morning they would of had to go in the fridge which is tiny) so I cheated and used a can of whippy cream – it did the job but no where as nice as real cream so please use real cream if you can! Makes 12 cupcakes.

    150g butter, softened
    150g caster sugar
    2 large or 3 medium eggs
    175g self-raising flour
    1/2 teaspoon baking powder
    25g cocoa powder
    45ml milk
    100g dark chocolate, melted plus extra grated
    1 tin of cherries or jar of cherries (especially if in liqueur)
    1/2 jar sour cherry jam
    kirsh, if you have some
    300ml double cream, whipped

     

    Preheat the oven to 160C if fan. Line a 12-hole muffin tray with paper cases.

    Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Break in the eggs then sift over the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder, mix well. Fold in the melted chocolate and the milk.

    Spoon or pipe into the cases and bake for 18-20 minutes until well risen, springy and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes then take out the tin to cool completely.

    At this stage you can drizzle the cakes with some kirsh (could be from the jar if you treated yourself to cherries in liqueur) or a simple sugar syrup made with sugar and the liquid from the tin of cherries.

    Once the cakes are completely cool, cut a well in the centre of them (using a cupcake holer if you have one) and fill this well with sour cherry jam; replace a plug of cake in the well to seal. Pipe or spoon over the whipped cream, place a cherry on the top of each cupcake and sprinkle over the reserved grated chocolate.

    Enjoy!

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