Cherries two ways

It is a casual Friday here in Tal. The college kids have fled for the summer and the city is now breathing quietly. Joe is asleep. He went to the midnight Ironman opener, and has been talking of nothing but superhero scenarios and eminent napping since. I spent the day collecting sea shells, pretending to cast my ballot for potential villain candidates in the upcoming Batman movie, and mostly, thinking about what I was going to make for dinner. I dawned on me that it might not be normal to think about food all day. Most people probably think about productive things, like the stock market, or important things, like a doctor's appointment. But me... I mostly just think about food: what I ate for breakfast... what would bananas foster ice cream taste like... what does grandma put in her apple crisp to make it so good? The wanderings of my mind are fairly one-note. And this past week, all brain capacity seemed to hone in on a single obsession- chipotle cherry short ribs.


Like any disease, I have learned to live with my food obsession disorder. When an idea slips into my mind and begins to grow, I simply let it fester, until the obsession manifests in a disastrous mess and, usually, an edible finale. The short rib obsession took this usual form. It ended with a counter glazed in cherry preserves, a stovetop spattered with beef grease, and a skillet full of, well... dinner. I haven't quite gotten the hang of this meat thing yet, so the experience was a bit like chewing a leather boot. Thank god for the cherries and booze, which saved the dish entirely. I roasted a batch of new potatoes from the farmers market, and we dunked these heartily into the salty sweet drippings.

A few days later, it was time for a bit of housekeeping around here. My idea of cleaning is oddly centered around purging the refrigerator of unmentionables, and rarely involves anything outside of the kitchen. This time, it meant finishing off those sticky jars of sour cherries. Within a few minutes, the sink was full of freshly dirtied dishes, and the oven was warming for a lovely lemon-cherry bundt cake.


Lemon-Cherry Bundt Cake

This cake is similar, in texture, to a coffee cake, and, when paired with a dark cup of coffee, makes for a nice breakfast. If you like your breakfast sweets a little less sugary, you could try cutting back the sugar to 1.5 cups.

6 Tb unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
zest and juice of one lemon
1 cup sour cream

2 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 Tb wheat germ
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp sea salt

Roughly one cup sour cherries (mine were canned, but fresh would be tastier)
Roughly 1.5 cups cherry preserves or, in my case, a sort of cherry filling

Preheat oven to 350. Melt the butter by placing it in a bundt pan (or divide between two standard bread pans), and set in the preheating oven. Remove the pan(s) from the oven as soon as the butter has melted. Wisk together the remaining five wet ingredients. Slowly wisk the warm butter into the egg and sugar mixture. In a separate bowl, wisk together the dry ingredients. Stir the flour mixture into the wet mixture by hand, until the flour is just combined. Add the sour cherries and stir just enough to incorporate. Using a pastry brush or your hands, butter the pan(s) with the residual melted butter. Lightly flour the greased pan(s). Pour half of the cake batter into the pan(s). Spread the cherry preserves on top of the cake batter, and top with the remaining batter. Level the top of the cake, and sprinkle generously with sanding sugar. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the cake center comes out clean. Cool for ten minutes, then loosen the edges of the cake with a knife and invert onto a plate. If serving as a dessert, this cake would finish well with a lemon glaze, made by mixing together the juice and zest of another lemon with a cup or two of powdered sugar. If glazing, do so while the cake is still warm.