Saturday, April 16, 2011

Sour Chery Poundcake

My sister Amanda brought over some amazing, melt in your mouth, sour sweetness from a tree, sour cherry poundcake.  My husband ate most of it, but the bite I did get- I knew I had to recreate.  Kelly and I had picked cherries a year before and they had been sitting in our freezer.  We are in the cleanout your freezer for summer mode so we found them way in the back.  6 eggs, 3 sticks of butter, a brick of cream cheese and 31/2  cups of sugar later, we have pound cake.  The recipe says to bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes............It was hardly done at that amount of time- so keep it in for at least 10 more minutes.

Credit goes to NPR what to do with sour cherries........... Domonica Marchetti Big Night In: More Than 100 Wonderful Recipes for Feeding Family and Friends Italian Style (Chronicle Books 2008)

Sour Cherry Pound Cake
2 cups fresh sour cherries, pitted and halved
3 cups sugar, plus 1/2 cup for marinating cherries
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for pan
6 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
8 ounces mascarpone cheese or sour cream, at room temperature (I used 1 block of cream cheese)
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Lightly butter and flour a 10-inch Bundt or tube pan and set it aside.
In a small bowl, mix the cherries with 1/2 cup of the sugar. Let the mixture steep while you prepare the batter for the cake. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Set aside. Put the butter in the bowl of a standing mixer and beat on medium speed to combine. Add the remaining 3 cups of sugar, a half-cup at a time, and beat at high speed until light and airy, 5 full minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Beat in the vanilla. Change the speed to medium and alternately add the flour and salt mixture and the mascarpone or sour cream, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix until incorporated. Drain the cherries, reserving the syrup that collects in the bowl. With a rubber or silicon spatula, fold the cherries into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and shake lightly to even out the top. Bake until cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the cake comes out clean, 1 hour 15 minutes.While the cake is baking, put the reserved cherry syrup in a small saucepan and boil for about 5 minutes, or until slightly thickened. Strain and reserve the liquid.- IMPORTANT.  When the cake is done, place the pan on a cooling rack and cool for 20 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan. While it is still warm, brush the top and sides with the warm cherry syrup. The cake will absorb the syrup. Let the cake cool to room temperature.
To serve, transfer the cake to a decorative platter or cake stand. Dust with confectioners' sugar.
Divine