Cherry Bomb!

Having a blog has its perks ... like two big ol' bags of free cherries from Whole Foods to use however I see fit. The Memphis store (5022 Poplar) is hosting a Cherry Fest on Saturday, July 23rd from 1 to 3 p.m., and they're hoping to spread the word about cherry season. Cherry Fest features a cooking demo by Sri Srinivsan and lots of recipes and samples of cherry-centric foods.

The marketing department asked me to cook up some fun cherry-based dessert for my blog and share the recipe. I didn't want to do a pie because that route seemed too obvious, but honestly, I've rarely worked with fresh cherries. I don't own a cherry pitter, and I assumed pitting by hand would be a pain.

But not so. I pitted three cups worth in less than 15 minutes for this Cherry Pudding Cake:

Since I wasn't familiar with many fresh cherry recipes, I googled and stumbled upon this recipe from AllRecipes.com. It was easily veganized, and it sounded pretty yummy. It's a cakey cobbler dessert made from fresh cherries dropped into a thick vanilla cake batter. The cake cooks around the cherries, and the fruit gets all melty and awesome.

Here's a slice before my co-workers gobbled it up:

And here's the recipe, adapted from AllRecipes.com.

Cherry Pudding Cake
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2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 cup evaporated cane juice
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup soymilk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups pitted red cherries
3/4 cup evaporated cane juice
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish. In a bowl, stir together the flour, 1 cup of evaporated cane juice, baking powder, soymilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla to make a smooth batter; scrape batter into the prepared baking dish.

In a separate bowl, stir the cherries with the other 3/4 cup of evaporated cane juice and the almond extract; spoon the cherry mixture over the batter.

Bake in the preheated oven until the cake is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 40 to 50 minutes.
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Don't forget to enter my Zukay Ginger-Beet Kvass giveaway here. And I'll see y'all again on Sunday night (or maybe even Monday). I'm headed to New Orleans for an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies conference for work.