Cherry Batter Pudding

Rob went back to work this week for the first time since Ted was born.  It's been fantastic to have him at home for so long, but it's time for me to start functioning again.  At this point 48 hours ago I was beginning to think that I would never ever be able to do things like write for my poor neglected blog, or not until Ted had gone to school at least!  He was feeding furiously and grizzling loudly if I dared to let him out of my arms, and it was as much as I could do to get us both out of bed and dressed.  In fact practically all I could do for most of the day was watch the Olympics on television, babe in my arms.

But today things are calmer.  Ted is sleeping and I am starting to feel like I might actually be able to get things done.  I've started thinking about planning meals and writing shopping lists... but I think it's probably still too soon to think about housework, don't you?!

And so it's back to the blog.  Whilst I haven't managed to cook anything much recently, I have managed to produce the occasional cake and pudding for various visitors, including one pudding that I feel that I need to make again very soon, just for us.  I say 'us', but maybe I really mean ME - I could eat an entire dish of this on my own without a second thought.  For me, it's the perfect pud - comforting, warming, egg-custardy and full of one of my favourite fruits, cherries.  Above all it's incredibly simple, and made even more so when you use a jar of ready pitted cherries.  I found these ones in Lidl, and now always make sure I have a jar in the house in order to make this dish:

Incidentally, for the breastfeeding mother, the juice from the cherries makes for a very convincing-looking red wine substitute if you strain it into a glass!

I think this pud is probably the English version of the French Clafoutis, although this has more of a custard texture than a batter, despite its name.  But whatever you call it, I call it my current favourite pudding - highly recommended!

Cherry Batter Pudding - From the Dairy Book of Family Cookery

3 level tbsp flour
pinch of salt
3 eggs, beaten
5 level tbsp caster sugar
450ml milk
15ml rum (optional - I didn't use this)
50g butter
675g black cherries, stoned and washed (or 1 jar of pitted cherries, strained, from Lidl!)

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl then blend in the eggs.  Add 3 tbsp of the sugar.

Stir the milk into the egg mixture, and the rum if using.  (NB the original recipe says the heat the milk until lukewarm before doing this, but I have never bothered).

Butter a shallow dish, put in the cherries, pour in the batter and dot with the remaining butter.

Bake in the oven at 220C (425F) for 25-30 mins (although I usually find that I have to give it an extra 10 minutes to make sure it's set in the middle), sprinkle with the remaining sugar and serve warm.

CSI: UK

Anyone walking into my kitchen yesterday would have been forgiven for screaming and running for the door, calling the police as they did so.




It certainly looked as though I had been committing bloody murder... (that'll teach Rob for leaving the toilet seat up again!)



But the reason for the dramatic red spattering was in fact these beautiful cherries. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have discovered several wild cherry trees in the locality. But it turns out that there are rich pickings even closer than this - we even have a cherry tree in our GARDEN! And so apparently do many of our neighbours. Now, our tree is producing quite small, scarlet cherries. They have a nice sharp flavour, but still sweet enough to eat unadorned. However, they are a real pain to pit as they simply pop straight through the hole in the pitter! But... over the road, in Abbi's garden, is a tree which is producing these wonderful dark red, large, juicy cherries. So yesterday saw me once again balancing precariously on a garden chair with a punnet in one hand, and cherry juice dripping down my arm. I hasten to add that I had asked her permission to pick them, and as she wasn't intending to pick them she was very happy that I should use them.



Cherry-pitting has to be one of the most tedious kitchen jobs there is. As well as being extremely messy, it's also slow and boring. And it makes your hand ache. What I really need is one of these nifty gadgets, as demonstrated on Amy Karol's lovely blog... Still, making do with the far less amusing but still pretty effective cherry-pitter from the local hardware shop, I battled through the freshly picked kilogram of cherries.

And you know what? It was worth every tedious minute. The cherry season is so short, it's worth making the most of every opportunity to use them, especially when they are available for free!

I had decided that I wanted to bake something with them, so went for the now famous Plum Torte recipe from the New York Times, but substituting half of the flour for ground almonds and leaving out the cinnamon. Instead of plums I tumbled several handfuls of pitted cherries, along with a generous scattering of sliced almonds. I had intended to use crushed amaretti biscuits to make a crispy topping as seen on this divine looking Cherry Amaretto Cake baked by the always-inspirational Mannix... but I couldn't seem to find the amaretti I thought were stashed in the cupboard. That will have to wait until next time.



I was however very pleased with the resulting cake. Like it's Plum cousin, this is perfect eaten warmed as a dessert, but I wouldn't refuse a cold slice to accompany my afternoon cup of tea. In fact, I didn't refuse one, and utterly delicious it was too.



Having recently got the cupcake bug, I was keen to try some kind of cherry cupcake too. I had tried - with great success - filling cupcakes using the cone method... last time I used stewed rhubarb, but this time it was cherries, made into a light compote with just a touch of sugar. I strained the juice before filling the cupcakes so that the cakes didn't become too soggy.



I 'invented' the topping - beating together cream cheese and icing sugar, and then stirring in 100g of melted white chocolate. This meant that the icing hardened slightly on cooling, and didn't slide off the cake.



I thought it was only fair to thank the neighbours from whom I had picked the cherries, so packaged up a couple of cute punnets of cupcakes for them... All I can say is that my neighbours are lucky I delivered them before I tasted one of these. They're so gorgeous I would have struggled to give them away had I eaten one first!

Further Foraging...

I couldn't believe it... cherries, growing wild on trees a mere 2 minutes walk from home! So yesterday I carried a garden chair down to the canal, set it up in the middle of the towpath underneath a groaning bough of cherries and got picking. Much to the amusement of the passing joggers and dog-walkers, and the annoyance of a grey squirrel sitting on the aforementioned bough and filling his cheeks with the cherries.

Within about 20 minutes I had gathered this punnet full - about a kilogram of fruit - and I could have carried on but was in danger of over-stretching and falling off my garden chair into the canal. Which come to think of it would probably have provided much more amusement to the joggers and dog-walkers, and a certain amount of alarm to the ducks.

So bearing in mind the well-known proverb that Greed comes before a Fall I stopped and carried my punnet of cherries proudly home.



Only to think now what on earth do I do with these?!!



Obviously photographing them was a good start!

But today, one cherry-pitter purchased, and recipes researched, another batch of jam is on the way...