Wondering what to do with those fresh, sweet cherries that are in abundance this time of the year? This is a recipe from Martha Stewart that I love to make in the summer time. These little cakes are moist and absolutely delicious. Last night Shaws had a special on cherries- $1.99/lb so I bought 6 pounds of them! Since our office has been working round the clock to get a major Energy Literacy grant ready to submit to NSF, I decided to make some of these for the staff today in recognition of their tremendous effort to pull this grant together. The only challenge was pitting all those cherries. Those of you who know the "Tool Time" activity I use to introduce the need for CTS tools, know I have all kinds of interesting mystery tools I pull out for this activity. My cherry pitting tool is one of those mystery tools (and few ever recognize what that little tool is for!). Unfortunately, my cherry pitter was at my office in the mystery tool box, so I had to come up with another way to pit the cherries while leaving the whole cherry intact. Try this- it worked! Take a wooden chopstick that has a blunt end. Hold the cherry firmly in your hand, closing your fingers around it tightly so it stays intact. Aim the chopstick for the top/center of the cherry, right over where the pit would be. Push it down into the cherry and voila- the pit will pop out the other end. You have to hold the cherry firmly encased to do this, otherwise it just mushes the cherry. Regardless of how you pit your cherries, you will love this recipe! You can use muffin tins and muffin cups or bake these in little ramekin dishes.
Or- pour the batter into a greased 9 by nine pan and poke a single layer of the cherries into the batter. Bake for 30 minutes then cut into squares.
Brown Sugar Cherry Cakelets
1/2 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed plus more for the topping
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 T buttermilk
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
48sweet cherries (pitted)
1. With your mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and beat. Add in buttermilk and vanilla and beat until smooth, scraping side of bowl.
2. Add flour, salt, and baking soda. Mix until smooth.
3. Fill the muffin cups or small ramekins a little less than 1/2 full. Place 4 cherries on top of batter, pressing down slightly if needed.
4. Place about 1/2 tsp of brown sugar on top of the cherries.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until cakelets are browned and knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cool and enjoy! Makes 12 cupcake size cakelets.
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