Roasted Cherry Brownies

Yeah, I stole one before I took the picture. I had to make sure these were good before I blogged about them!

I had some trouble with these brownies. Specifically, I forgot to set a timer so I have no idea how long they baked for. Clearly, I was doing too many things in the kitchen at once. Normally, I have enough of a sense of time to be able to guess, but when I realized there was no timer running for these I truly had no clue how long it had been. When I examined them, I thought they might be nearly done, so I started setting the oven timer for 5-7 minutes at a time, checking them, and popping them back in the oven. After twenty plus minute of this, after they finally puffed up, I remembered what brownies look like when they're done and decided they were close. A few minutes later, I finally removed them out of sheer exhaustion. The bad news? They're a bit underdone. The good news? They're a bit underdone.

These brownies are deliciously fudgey and moist. The added moisture from the incomplete baking process is not a problem in my book. The cherries add a wonderful richness - the flavor manages to permeate most of the brownie (perhaps from the extra juice from roasting?). I take some credit here because out of the eight varieties of cherries we picked last week, I chose the richest ones for this recipe. The result is a moist, extremely chocolatey but richly fruity treat. Definitely a winner. I'm really sad I have to pack these into the freezer, since we're suffering (wink wink nudge nudge) from a surfeit of cherry-laden treats right now.

Roasted Cherry Brownies
Slightly adapted from Tracey's Culinary Adventures. 

2 c fresh cherries
1 1/4 c + 2 tbsp sugar, divided
5 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used my preferred chocolate chips - Ghirardelli 60% cacao)
2 oz unsweetened chocolate (I used some Scharffen Berger that I've been trying to get rid of - it's not my favorite chocolate because it has a strange fruity aftertaste, but I (correctly) assumed it would work well with actual fruit)
1/2 c butter, cut into 8 pieces
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghirardelli)
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1 c flour

Preheat oven to 450° F. Line a small baking dish with foil. 

Halve and pit the cherries, then toss with 2 tbsp sugar. Spread inside the foil-lined baking dish.

Roast the cherries 9-10 minutes until they are softened and juicy. Set aside to cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 350° F.

Meanwhile, finely chop your chocolate (chocolate chip-sized pieces are fine) and combine with the butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water (I prefer to bring the water to a boil first, turn off the heat, and melt the butter and chocolate with the remaining steam). Stir with a rubber spatula until the butter and chocolate have melted and are well combined. Whisk in the cocoa powder, then set aside to cool slightly.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt. Slowly whisk in the cooled chocolate mixture until well combined. Fold in the flour with a rubber spatula, then carefully fold in cherries.

Transfer the batter to an 8 x 8" baking dish lined with foil (make sure the foil overhangs the edges for easy removal later). Bake 35-45 minutes, until tester comes out relatively clean (or leave a little underbaked, like me, and have super-fudgey brownies!). Remove to a wire rack and completely cool before cutting.

Cherry Walnut Relish

Oops. I seem to have missed Farm Fridays this week. Yesterday turned out to be quite a busy day when my usual Friday errands turned into an all-out shopping spree. I spent money on a level that I've never reached before (at least, not in a single day!). Slipping into Sur La Table at the mall for a new tea kettle (I sorta melted the top of the old one) meant getting sucked into several stores having awesome sales and dropping into Sephora to replenish my foundation led me into a long conversation with a saleswoman who evaluated my skin and recommended several products that I really should have been using already (somehow in all these years I never learned about primer). And after months of mostly vain searching for shoes that I can wear with my bulky orthopedic inserts, I hit the jackpot, coming home with five new pairs. The gist of all this is that I spent far more time shopping than originally planned, which didn't get me home in time to make all the dinner recipes I'd had planned. And the stuff we did manage was done before I thought to grab my camera.

But I thought I'd make it up to you with a few of the cherry recipes we worked on last week. Last Saturday Terhune Orchards opened for cherry picking! You may remember that I went last year and blogged about how much fun I had. This year Jeff was available to come along and help, so we planned a big day of cherry picking and canning. Cherry picking is so easy, and cherries are so delicious and tempting, that we picked far more than we'd intended - we brought home thirteen pounds of cherries (see the above picture of our dining room table laden with cleaned and sorted fruit). And by the end of the weekend, most of them had been dispatched in a variety of tasty recipes.

We made this cherry-walnut relish, cherry preserves and almond and sweet cherry galette on Saturday and on Sunday, after I'd realized how much we still had (and fearing we wouldn't get through them before they started to go bad), I obsessively searched through my files and the internet to find more possibilities: brandied cherries, individual cherry crisps and roasted cherry brownies (don't worry - those are the subject of my next post!). The crisps and the brownies were frozen for future consumption, so we will be enjoying cherries for several weeks to come.

This cherry walnut relish was the first project that came to mind when we decided to go cherry picking. When I got my copy of Put 'Em Up a few years ago and prepared to start canning, it was one of the first recipes that caught my eye. I jumped at the chance to do it this year. I chose the most luscious and velvety of the cherry varieties we had (while I divided them all into bags and pint boxes to keep the varieties separate, I of course failed to remember the names of the cherries we'd picked) to go with the richness of the spices and nuts. While cherries are a summer fruit, I thought this sounded like a winter treat, to top pork roasts or a turkey sandwich (I have my heart set on a roasted turkey panini with this relish and some Gruyere some time this fall). I was absolutely right -the tang of the vinegar lends complexity to the rich sweetness of the cherries. Even though the walnuts were added all the way at the end, their flavor manages to permeate the relish as well and the bigger pieces add a nice crunchy texture. I look forward to putting this on many winter sandwiches!

Cherry Walnut Relish
From Put 'Em Up by Sherri Brooks Vinton. 

4 c sweet cherries, stems and pits removed
1 c sugar
1 c cider vinegar
1 onion, diced
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 c crushed walnuts

Add the cherries, sugar and a splash of water to a large, nonreactive pot (I prefer my enameled Dutch oven for all canning activities) and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring and crushing the cherries with a potato masher to help them release their juices.

Add the vinegar, onion and cinnamon stick, stir to combine, and return the mixture to a simmer. Cook until thickened (but not dry), about 20 minutes

Add the walnuts and return to a boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and take out the cinnamon stick.

Spoon into half-pint canning jars, covering the solids with 1/4" of liquid and leaving 1/4" headspace. Process for 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner. 

Fudge-Dipped Cherry Shortbread Sandwich Cookies

I've been wanting to make these cookies for years. They've made it on my Christmas to-do list before, but somehow they never happen. I guess I thought they would be really time-consuming, what with the shortbread, the filling and the fudge dipping sauce. As it turns out, however, there is not much hands-on time at all. The recipe is extremely easy to throw together in little stages. The shortbread is tasty, the cream is awesome, and the fudge sauce is luscious.

The one problem I have with this cookie is the fudge sauce. It tastes delicious, but it's not very practical. It remains soft and drippy even after a night in the freezer. I placed some cookies on a plate for a few minutes in order to take the above picture, and they'd already left chocolate smears all over it. In the future, I think I'll dispense with the fudge sauce (who wants to eat corn syrup anyway?) and go for a hard chocolate coating, like what you would use on a truffle. I'm still including the fudge recipe here, but I'll update it when I come up with a better solution.

Fudge-Dipped Cherry Shortbread Sandwich Cookies
From Better Homes and Gardens November 2009.

Shortbread:
1/2 c dried cherries
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 c sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 c butter, cold and cut into 1/2" pieces

Fudge:
1/2 c heavy cream
3 tbsp light corn syrup (I did find an organic, GMO-free one!)
4 oz semisweet chocolate chips

Cream:
1/2 c heavy cream
3 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 c powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325° F. Add the cherries to a small bowl and cover with boiling water. Let sit ten minutes, then drain.

In a food processor, combine flour, sugar, cornstarch, salt and baking powder. Pulse until combined. Add the butter and soaked cherries and pulse until the dough begins to clump together. Dump out onto a sheet of parchment paper. Mold the dough into a square, cover with another sheet of parchment paper, and roll into a 12 x 9" rectangle (I don't know how you roll things into rectangles - mine was more oval, so I sliced the edges off and rolled them out separately. That's what caused the different-sized rectangles in the picture below). Remove the top parchment and use a knife to slice the dough into 3 x 1" pieces (but don't separate them!). Slide the parchment onto a baking sheet.

Bake the shortbread for 30-35 minutes, until lightly golden. Remove and cool completely on a wire rack. Then use a knife to separate the rectangles and match them into evenly-sized pairs.

Meanwhile, make the fudge sauce. In a small saucepan, combine the cream and corn syrup. Cook over medium-high heat until hot. Remove from heat and add the chocolate chips, stirring with a spatula until the chocolate is melted and combined. Let cool for about an hour, until thickened.

To make the cream filling, combine the cream, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in a medium bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to use.

When everything is ready, assemble the cookies. Pick up a pair of shortbreads. Use a small spatula to spread the cream onto the flat side of one cookie. Top with the other cookie, flat side down. Dip one end into fudge sauce, then place on a piece of parchment paper to dry (since I was making these a week or so in advance, I put the parchment on a baking sheet which I could slip in the freezer. Once frozen, I removed them to tupperware containers). Repeat with the rest of the cookies.

Cherry Picking at Terhune Orchards

When I called Terhune Orchards on Friday to ask about this weekend's cherry picking, the lady who answered the phone advised me to come early. I figured that meant there weren't a ton of ripe cherries to pick (since it was the first day) and the jam-makers would get them all within a few hours.

I managed to get over to the farm by 9:15 (they opened at 9). When I pulled up to the gates, my jaw dropped at the sea of cars already parked on the lawn. This is a shot of the smaller parking area - there were many more cars behind me.

I hightailed it over to the cherry trees, following the handy signs and slipping in front of large families along the way.

This was the line to get into the cherry orchard (when I left, thank goodness - when I got there it was much shorter. I just missed the early rush and slipped in before the next wave). They charged admission for each person, which was credited toward your purchase on the way out.

The rows of cherry trees were covered with light-colored canvas, the sides of which were covered in netting. I thought, at first, this was to control human entrance to the grove, but I later realized it was to keep the birds and other pests out. Good call - the trees were laden with pristine fruit, undamaged by tiny teeth (my childhood experience with fruit trees is that they were banquet halls for squirrels - I might employ this trick if I ever grow fruit in the future).

The trees were sagging under the weight of their delicious fruit. This tree is a Ranier, sporting bright yellow cherries with a pink blush. I took picked five different varieties - Montmorency (sour cherries), Ranier, Chelan, Hartland and Schmidt. The Schmidt cherries, if I am right about the varieties, are huge, deeply red, rich fruits that remind me of the Bing cherries you can get at the grocery store. These are my current favorite (and if I'd found them first, they might have filled all my containers). I tried to be reasonable, taking only 3-4 pounds of cherries, since I don't intend to can anything today (I have too much work to do this weekend to be spending hours pitting cherries!). Instead, I plan on snacking on this juicy bounty all week long.