Carrot/Cherry Cake

Has it really been over a week since I've written about our cherry trees? Surely we must rectify that.

Over the weekend, yet another large branch from our other (only remaining) sour cherry tree snapped, dragged down by its ripening fruit. After purchasing a 14-foot tree-pruning saw, Rob and I managed to wrangle this branch off the tree with much cursing and ado spread out over two days. As a result, we now have many many more pounds of ripe-to-the-point-of-bursting cherries sitting in the fridge. All in all, I have picked about 60 pounds of cherries in the past two weeks. In case you're wondering, one pound is about one quart.

On the up side, to lessen our backlog of cherries, I tried putting them in a cake by substituting cherry sauce for puréed carrots in my carrot cake recipe. Not too bad, although further tweaking is necessary. The cake turned out soggy and a with a very strong cherry flavor, so I will definitely reduce the amount of cherries next time. It was also too sweet because of the extra sugar in the sauce.

So, to begin with, here is my carrot cake recipe, adapted from the one in the Silver Palate Cookbook:

Carrot Cake:

• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  
• 2¼ cups granulated sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
  
• 1½ cups corn oil
  
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
  
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  
• 1½ cups shelled walnuts, chopped
  
• 1 cup shredded coconut (optional)
  
• 1½ pounds carrots, cooked and pureed
  
• 1 cup well-drained (squeezed) crushed pineapple (about one 20-oz. can)
  

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 9-inch springform pans.
2. Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Add oil, eggs, and vanilla. Beat
well. Fold in walnuts, coconut, carrots, and pineapple.
3. Pour batter into the prepared pans. Set on the middle rack of the oven
and bake for 50 minutes, rotating halfway through. The edges should pull
away from the sides of the pans, and a cake tester inserted in center
should come out clean.
4. Cool for 3 hours and frost.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
  
• 6 tablespoons sweet butter at room temperature
  
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• juice of 1 lemon or lime
  

1. Cream together cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl.
2. Slowly sift in confectioners' sugar and continue beating until fully
incorporated.
3. Stir in vanilla and lemon juice.

For cherry cake, make the following changes:

• Substitute 1 cup whole wheat flour for 1 cup all-purpose flour.
  
• Increase baking powder to 1¼ teaspoons.
  
• Substitute 3 cups cherry sauce for the puréed carrots. Use less if the sauce is runny.
  
• Reduce sugar to 1½ to 2 cups, depending on the sweetness of the cherry sauce.
  
• Add cherry sauce at the very end. The acid in the cherries will activate the baking soda, so too much stirring afterwards will deflate the batter.