the honey eater » cherries

Cherry Vanilla Bread Pudding

naomi — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:06:00 +0000

Let me tell you a story:

Once there was this girl who really liked this boy so she thought she’d make him bread pudding. Not just any bread pudding, but a chai bread pudding, where the milk is steeped with spices and tea and the final dish is rich, flavorful and complex. She looked through her cupboards and was happy to discover that she had most of the ingredients on hand, which was good because spices like cardamom can be expensive. She went over to his apartment to make this bread pudding in his (and what is now their) tiny kitchen. She warmed the milk, mixed in the whole spices and tea and let it all steep for an hour. She mixed the milk with eggs, and added the bread and let it soak for a half an hour. She put it in a big pan and put that in an even bigger pan and put all those pans in the oven (along with some hot water to make the bain marie) for fifty minutes. She pulled the bread pudding out of the oven, perfectly browned and beautiful and it tasted. . . . awful. One thing this girl had neglected to do was check her spices (who knew cardamom could go bad! and in such a bad way! especially after it sat in storage in Pittsburgh one hot summer and hadn’t been used for a good three years).

From that day on the boy had a very negative attitude towards bread pudding. It became a running joke, he would say “you can make anything you want, just don’t make bread pudding!” One day, the girl and the pudding decided to plot a comeback. While the boy was away the girl made him bread pudding sans cardamom with two of his favorite flavors, cherry and vanilla. And it worked! He couldn’t believe it was the same recipe, the same pudding just in a new party dress. He loves this bread pudding now and would happily eat it any day of the week.

Moral of the story: always check your spices, especially if they’ve spent an inordinate amount of time in storage during hot and humid months/on high shelves/not being used. And make bread pudding, it’s delicious.

Cherry Vanilla Bread Pudding
adapted from Martha Stewart

This is the most perfect bread pudding recipe. The bread and custard seem to meld into one beautiful, happy whole. It can be customized in a myriad of ways: add spices and use raisins instead of cherries, or go tropical with bananas, coconut and rum. You could add 8 ounces of chocolate to the cream recipe. If you’re brave you might add 1/4 cup black tea, 3 cinnamon sticks, a 2″ piece of peeled ginger, 8 whole cloves, 10 cardamom pods and 1/4 cup sugar to the cream mixture and let steep for an hour. You could possibly then strain said mixture, and mix it into the eggs. You could hypothetically then make a chai bread pudding for yourself, if you like, and if you have fresh spices.

I halved the recipe and made it in little individual cups (as you can see) but I prefer it in one big pan, there seems to be a better custard to bread ratio, so that’s the recipe I’m giving you. However, if you like, you can cut the recipe in half and cook it in 6-8 oz. baking dishes, just reduce the baking time to 40 minutes.

12 ounces brioche or challah, cut into 1″ cubes
2 cups milk
3 cups heavy cream
4 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried cherries

Butter a 9″ x 13′ baking dish.

Place the bread in a large bowl.

Whisk together the eggs, yolk, sugar, salt, and vanilla in a medium bowl.

Heat the milk and cream in a medium saucepan until just about to simmer. Slowly pour the cream mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Pour over bread, folding to combine. Let stand 30 minutes, tossing and pressing occasionally to keep the bread submerged.

Preheat oven to 350° F and put a kettle on to boil. Stir cherries into the bread mixture. With a slotted spoon, transfer bread to a buttered dish; pour liquid in bowl over the top. Turn the top layer of bread crust side up.

Set dish in a roasting pan and transfer to over. Pour boiling water into the roasting pan until it reaches about halfway up the sides of the dish. Bake until golden brown, about 50 minutes.

Chocolate Cherry Bars

naomi — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:22:45 +0000

These have been one of my favorite cookies for a long time. When I was putting together care packages for our not-so-near and but-very-dear they were part of the lineup. Crumbly chocolate cookie flecked with toasted coconut and filled with sour cherries and chunks of dark chocolate. What more do I have to say?

Chocolate Cherry Bars
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cookies

I love this book partly for the fool-proof recipes, but mostly because the cookies are arranged by texture and for the pictorial table of contents.

1-1/4 (6 oz or 170 g) cups dried cherries, coarsely chopped
1-1/4 cups (280 g) unsalted butter, all but 2 tbsp. (30 g) cut into small pieces
1 cup (225 g) sugar
2/3 (155 ml) cup water
1/2 cup (45 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp (5 g) salt
3/4 (110 g) cup light brown sugar
1 cup (85 g) unsweetened shredded coconut lightly toasted
2 cups (260 g) plus 7-1/2 tsp (60 g) all-purpose flour
1 large egg
2 tbsp cherry liquor (optional, I used maraschino, but you could also use kirsch)
1/2 cup (3.5 oz or 105 g) semisweet chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 350-degrees Farenheit. Butter a 9″ square baking pan and line with parchment paper or aluminum foil, allowing for a 2″ overhang. Butter parchment or foil.

Bring the cherries, 2 tbsp (30 g) butter, 1/4 cup (56 g) sugar, and the water to simmer in a saucepan over medium heat. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until almost all of the liquid has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in another 1/4 cup (56 g) of sugar. Cool, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved.

Whisk together the cocoa powder, salt, brown sugar, coconut and 2 cups (260 g) flour. Blend in the remaining butter with your fingers or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Pack about 3 cups of the chocolate mixture into the baking pan. Bake until just set, about 20 minutes.

Whisk together the egg, the remaining 1/2 cup (113 g) sugar, and the liquor (if using) until pale. Fold in the cherry mixture and the remaining 7-1/2 tsp (60 g) flour; stir in the chocolate. Spread mixture over crust. Sprinkle with the rest of the chocolate dough.

Bake for about 50 minutes, a toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean. These cookies stay fresh for a while, at least 5 days (which is why they make such good care package material).

Fruity Clafouti

naomi — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:21:31 +0000

Have you ever made clafouti? Clafouti is a French flan-like desert traditionally made with cherries, though you can toss all number of fruits into the custard. I first made one ages ago, when I was a teenager, from a recipe in Martha Stewart Living. I remember at the time being surprised at how quickly it came together and how simple it was to make. I decided the time was ripe to make clafouti again, so I dusted off my old Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I used the rest of my sour cherries, two fresh peaches and a handful of beautiful, jewel-like red currants. It was a perfect mix of sweet and sour, with little shots of the uber-tart currants. We liked it so much I had to make another two days later when we had some friends over for dinner. Try it and see how long it lasts in your house.

Summer Fruit Clafouti
adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Clafoutis are immensely adaptable, while sweet cherries are traditional you can use any kind of fruit you like. Apples work well, as do pears (see the clafouti aux poires at the bottom of the page up there?).

3 cups of fruit, pitted, peeled, etc.
1-1/4 cups milk
2/3 cup sugar, divided
3 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
2/3 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Butter a 7-8 cup baking dish (my deep-dish 9″ pie plate was the perfect size).

Place the milk, 1/3 cup of the sugar, the eggs, vanilla, salt and flour into a blender in that order. Cover and blend at the highest speed for one minute.

Pour a 1/4″ layer of batter into the bottom of your dish and set over moderate heat for about a minute until a film begins to form on the bottom of the dish. Remove from heat. Add your fruit to the dish and sprinkle with the remaining 1/3 cup sugar. Pour the rest of the batter over the fruit and smooth with the back of a spoon.

Bake for about one hour. The clafouti is done when it has puffed and the top had browned. A needle or knife inserted into the center should come out clean. Julia & co. suggest dusting it with powdered sugar before serving, which I’m sure would look lovely.

two cherry jams

naomi — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:17:12 +0000

Once upon a time, long before I was even a twinkle in his eye, my dad lived in a house in Los Angeles that had an apricot tree in the yard. One summer the apricot tree produced an amazing amount of fruit, and my dad, being the man he is, decided to make jam. My dad and I are devoted lovers of stone fruits- cherries, apricots, plums- they all disappear when laid in front of us. He wanted to preserve the pure, manna from heaven flavor of apricots and decided to add nothing to this jam, no sugar, no lemon juice, no pectin, nothing, and just cook it down until it was nice and thick, golden and gooey. It took him three days. He turned off the stove to sleep, of course, and he says, when it was finally finished, it was sheer heaven.

(Yes, I sometimes write recipes on the cartons cherries come in, I don’t always have paper handy in the kitchen. And yes, that is a picture of my trash after cherry-pitting, it looked so pretty, I couldn’t resist. Reminded me a bit of this post.)

Inspired by this story, and Amir’s tales of plum jam making in his native Bosnia, I set out to make a triple cherry jam (kind of like a triple creme cheese, only instead of the extra butterfat, you have extra cherry goodness). Armed with pounds of fruit and a battalion of jars, I set out on what would become an hours-long process.

(I love my cherry pitter. Have you ever tried to pit a quart of cherries with a paper clip? It’s not as fun as it sounds.)

In the end, I hardly needed my army of jars. Three hours of cooking had turned 3 pounds of fruit into about 16 ounces of jam. I sent one 8 ounce jar to my father and kept the other one to eat on toast with mascarpone cheese. While this jam was, and is, by all accounts completely delectable I felt there was a jam itch in me that hadn’t entirely been scratched. I marched back to the farmers market, bought several more pounds of cherries, focusing only on sour ones this time. I wanted something mushy and tart. I wanted to trap the sweet/sour flavor into a glistening red goo. I got exactly what I wanted, and now I’m just waiting for an occasion to make a bunch of chocolate cupcakes, cut little holes out, fill them with jam, and cover them in whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Anyone having a party?

( Please save the foam after you skim it. Eat it with plain yogurt, or ice cream, use it to flavor rice pudding or just spoon it into your mouth. Whatever you do, don’t dump it down the sink.

Cherry Jams
Despite the very similar list of ingredients these jams are two very different beasts. The triple berry jam is much thicker and more chewy. The cherries retained their shape fairly well, especially the Rainiers which are a denser fruit to begin with.

The sour cherry jam is a little more watery and a little smoother because I mashed the fruit while cooking. It is tart, tart, tart, so if you want something a little sweeter, add more sugar. This was just right for me, barely sweet, with the delicate flavor of sour cherries bursting through.

Triple Cherry Jam

3 pounds (1.5 kilos) mixed cherries (I used equal amounts sour cherries, Rainier cherries and black cherries)
1 pound sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon

Toss the ingredients into a medium-large saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, lower heat and let simmer for about three hours, skimming foam and stirring occasionally until thick and little liquid remains.

Pour into sterilized jars and process.

Sour Cherry Jam

4.5 pounds (2 kilos) sour cherries
1 cup (175 g) sugar
juice of 1 lemon

Heat cherries in a medium-large pot over medium heat until they begin to release their juices. Mash them a little with the back of your spoon or a potato masher.

Add sugar and lemon juice, bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer, skimming foam and stirring occasionally, for about three hours, or until your jam has reached the desired thickness.

Notes: While its a bit of a drag to cook anything for this long in the summer heat, you can leave it bubbling on the stove and just return every once in a while to stir the pot and check its progress. You don’t even have to cook it for three hours, though I think long cooking gives jams a complexity you cannot achieve with an hour on the stove top. Still, cook it for less time, add pectin or some apple juice to make it thicken faster. Cook it longer if you feel like it. Cook to taste.

As for the canning part, I sterilize my jars in the oven and then process them in boiling water for about 15 minutes, but don’t listen to me. There are many great resources who can help you figure it all out.