Cherry Upside Down Cake

I had a desire to bake and wanted to use fruit. I had cherries around the house. I settled, eventually, on cherry upside down cake, because that was the right amount of cherries I had left. I am used to pineapple upside down cakes, with canned pineapple and maraschino cherries. And that is tasty! But this tastes like fresh fruit and is exceptionally delicious.

Cherries, amaretto, very simple cake. You could replace the cherries with any fruit. And the amaretto is totally optional, I am just a huge fan of amaretto mixed with stone fruit.

A word of warning about this cake: it is a very thick batter and needs to be spread out over the fruit. It also comes out a little dry, adding whipped cream was delightful.

Upside Down Cherry Cake

yields one nine inch cake

Topping (or the bottom?)

1 cup of fruit

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup amaretto (optional)

Cake

3/4 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon amaretto or vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9 inch round cake pan.

Melt the butter and brown sugar together. I melted them in the microwave, you can use a stove if you are averse to microwaves. Mix in the amaretto. Stir in the fruit, and pour into prepared cake pan.

Cream butter and sugar. Mix in amaretto/vanilla, then eggs. Add in dry ingredients.

Pour over fruit and glaze mixture.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. The brown sugar mixture will caramelize and bubble up the sides. Let cool in pan. Loosen the sides with a knife and invert onto a plate, bringing the caramelized glaze and cherries on the top.

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

Strawberry shortcake. Always a tasty idea in the summer. These are an all in one combination. They're a bit like scones, a bit softer than a cookie cookie, and totally delicious.






Soak diced strawberries with lemon juice and sugar. This draws out juice and enhances the sweetness of the berry more than you'd expect from a small amount of sugar.

Make a simple biscuit dough out of flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, butter and cream. Mix in the strawberries and bake.







I recommend adding ice cream and whipped cream, too, cause seriously, why not? And what is strawberry shortcake without cream?

Yum.

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies
Adapted from Martha Stewart

2 cups of strawberries, diced to about 1/4" cubes
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp sugar
2 c flour
1/2 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp cold butter
2/3 c heavy cream
turbinado sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper.

Mix strawberries, lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of sugar.

Combine flour, remaining 1/2 c sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut the butter into cubes and mix in with pastry cutter. When dough resembles oatmeal, mix in cream until the dough starts to come together. Add strawberries and mix in.

Scoop out approximately 1/4 cups, shape into rounds and pat until flat-ish. Sprinkle some turbinado sugar on top. Bake for 20 minutes.

Yields: 1 dozen cookies. Martha says you need to eat them quickly.

Watermelon Mint Sorbet

Have you ever been sitting there eating watermelon and thought to yourself, "This watermelon is tasty and delicious and really refreshing but I wonder if there's any possible way I could make it more refreshing?"

No? That's just me then? Well, I figured it out. You add mint and turn it into sorbet. It's amazing. It's the perfect treat for a hot day. I bet you didn't realize you wanted to eat this until just now, but now you know! It refreezes to coming out as a similar consistency to watermelon, but it's super cold and has a refreshing hint of mint. You should make this for your next cookout. You should make this just to have in your freezer to eat when it's hot and gross out.

Watermelon Mint Sorbet

1 small seedless watermelon

1 c sugar

1 c water

2 mint teabags* (make sure they are just pure mint)

Dash of lime juice

1/4 c vodka **

Bring water and sugar to a boil and cook until the sugar has completely dissolved. Add mint tea bags. Let sit out until room temperature, then refrigerate until cold.

Cut watermelon and scoop innards into blender. Add a dash of lime juice. Blend until liquid, this is fast, but you might have to push the watermelon back down towards the blades. It took me two blenders-full to turn the watermelon into juice. Combine watermelon juice and simple syrup.

Pour in ice cream maker. When the ice cream maker has finished doing it's thing, move sorbet into Tupperware and stir in vodka. Freeze in freezer for a few hours.

*There is no reason whatsoever not to use fresh mint if you have it. I don't have an herb garden and the grocery store was out of fresh mint when I went looking for it so I used mint tea instead

**Booze helps keep your sorbet from turning into ice in the freezer. I spent a couple of days trying to decide if I was going to use rum, tequila, or vodka, and settled on vodka for two reasons. One, it adds little in the way of flavor. Two, I couldn't find tequila in my liquor cabinet, and the only rum I could find was coconut. So, I went with vodka. I encourage experimentation and ask you to let me know how yours turns out if you try something else.

Blueberry Muffins

Blueberry muffins are my favorite kind of muffin. As summer slowly approaches and cheap fruit is all over stores, making blueberry muffins for a weekend breakfast. I love this recipe with the nutty taste of browned butter and the crumb topping. The berries ooze and it's a delicious treat.

Blueberry Muffins
Adapted from Joy the Baker
yields 12 muffins

For the muffin batter
7 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cups sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups washed blueberries

For the crumb topping
1/2 cup flour
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons of cold butter, cut in small cubes

Preheat oven to 375 and line muffin tin with wrappers.

Put butter in saucepan and cook on medium heat until it starts to turn brown, occasionally swirling the pot. Keep an eye on the butter, as it's easy to burn it. Remove from heat.

Whisk together the milk, eggs, and vanilla. Whisk in browned butter, being careful to mix the whole time so the eggs don't scramble from the heat. Whisk in dry ingredients. Fold in blueberries.

Fill all muffin tins with batter.

Mix together butter and sugar. Cut cold butter in, using a pastry cutter or two knives, until very fine. Pour over top of muffins.

Bake 18-20 minutes, then let sit in the pan for 15 minutes. They are delicious warm or cold.

Blackberry Cobbler

My cooking is often seasonally inspired. I am easy. It gets warm, and I want to cook with fruit. So after work on Friday I went to Haymarket, Boston's fabulous open air produce market with produce so inexpensive you wonder if you're buying things that "fell off a truck." Really, it just is so ripe you have to use it in a day or it goes bad, so too ripe to go to grocery stores. And I bought blackberries to bake with and raspberries to inhale for breakfast.

This is a recipe I got from a friend, and it is very possibly the easiest thing I have ever baked. It was warm and ooey and fruity and delicious, and should be eaten with vanilla ice cream.

Blackberry Cobbler

from Martin

serves four

4 cups blackberries

1/2 c flour

1/2 c sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c cold butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375.

Wash berries and put in 8x8 baking pan. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter. I threw it all in the food processor and mixed for less than a minute; if you don't have a food processor, cut the butter in with a pastry cutter or forks or however you do such things. Mix until the butter is in coarse crumbles.

Beat egg and vanilla extract and mix into the butter mixture.

Drop pieces of batter over the berries.

Bake for half an hour to 45 minutes, until it's golden brown.

Lemon Rose Bars

In an attempt to aggressively assert that it's spring, I decided citrus was the order of the day. And rosewater is the magic trick to make everything taste a little more special. Always be careful with rosewater, a little goes a long way, and it turns into perfume very easily. Lemon bars, it turns out, are super easy and fast and so delicious.

Rosewater Lemon Bars

Adapted from Joy the Baker

Yields about 24 bars, this recipe is easily halved

Ingredients

For crust

2 sticks of butter

1 cup granulated sugar

2 cups flour

For filling

4 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

3/8 cup flour (6 tablespoons)

1/2 cup lemon juice (about two lemons

1 tablespoon rosewater

zest from two lemons

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 13x9 baking pan, line with parchment paper, and grease the parchment paper.

Cream the butter, add sugar, and beat until fluffy. Add flour and mix.

Press into prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes, until lightly golden.

While the crust is baking, whisk together all the filling ingredients. Pour prepared filling over crust and bake for 15-20 minutes, until no longer jiggling in the center, and lightly browned. Cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Lift out of pan by parchment paper and cut into squares. Store in a covered container.