Ukrainian Cherry Cake

This is an easy recipe of cherry cake the way my mom and my granny made it in Ukraine. It is very delicious, with a sour cherry bursts throughout in a sweet, moist dough. You have to have pitted sour (tart) cherries for it, fresh or frozen.

Blog's Category: Cakes, Dessert, International, Ukrainian, My Staple Food

I was at a local farm yesterday and picked a basket of beautiful sour cherries there. It is not easy to find tart cherry here, in US. Finding a local farm growing cherry trees is almost the only option for us, Eastern Europeans craving sour cherries. Besides satisfying this craving eating cherries from a tree (lucky me, there was rainy days before cleaning cherries off chemical sprays), I've got whole basket of them to freeze, make pies and compotes. Well, I ended up making this family-recipe cherry pie and freezing the rest of them for a future endeavors ;)

Notes:

- I baked cakes in silicon cake forms, which I love to use for my baking, they don't require greasing. If you don't use silicon forms, don't forget to prepare your forms buttering them and dusting with flour before pouring batter in it.

- It's not your usual guilt-free butter-egg-sugar-flavor-free affair. You will have all the good stuff in it to enjoy small but perfect piece of cherry heaven. So, use sparingly at your own discretion ;)

- Substituting half of flour with a whole wheat variety sound like not bad idea.

- Almond extract is an optional ingredient, but I highly recommend it. It is a great compliment to any cherry pie.

- If you don't have almond extract or vanilla extract, use couple tablespoons of lemon zest.

- I don't bother taking butter from a fridge in advance, so I cut it in pieces to make a job easier for my electric beater.

Ukrainian Tart Cherry Cake

For two medium cakes:

• 2.5 stick of unsalted butter (about 250 g)
• 2 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tbs baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp almond extract (optional)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
• 3 tbs sour cream
• 4 cups pitted, fresh or frozen, sour (tart) cherries
• 2 tbs sugar powder

- Pre-heat oven to 350F. Place your silicon forms (or regular forms, greased and dusted with a flour) on a baking sheet.

- In a bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

- Cut butter in pieces, place in a separate deep bowl, add sugar and, using electric mixer, beat for about 3 minutes until smooth and fluffy. Continue to beat, add eggs, one by one, and vanilla and almond extract.

- With a mixer on a low speed, combine butter and flour mix together. Mix just until combined, then add sour cream, again, mix just until smooth. Do not over-beat. 

- Distribute batter between two silicon forms. 

- Place your pitted cherries on a top of batter. Transfer cherries with your hands to avoid pouring cherry juices on a batter. No need to push cherries in a batter, they will sink in a dough on their own while baking in an oven.

- Bake at 350F for approximately 1 hour until golden-brown and center of your cake is firm when touched by finger.

- Remove from an oven, transfer forms on a cooling rack, let it cool completely. When completely cooled, remove cake from a form, place on a serving plate. Use sieve to dust with a powdered sugar. 

- Cake can be kept at room temperature for no more than 1 day. Otherwise, keep it in a fridge.

- Enjoy!



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