So, cherry season is here, and that means cherry cake! This time I baked a super soft cherry bundt cake, full of flavour and juicy cherries. And a dash of Kirsch, cherry brandy, from the neighbourhood town Fougerolles, they’re famous for it.
Time flies and I am rather busy writing the book, photographing and recipe testing, all the while completing a milestone in the renovation of the guesthouse. In between gardening, which gives me so much joy and roots me down to the earth again after a wild day. We are having a rather wet summer, a super crazy rainy summer in fact, but I like the thought that, as with everything, imbalances eventually balance naturally and so it rains all the rain it didn’t rain in the past three years. It’s beautiful with all the mist and greyness too, and I realised I forgot how incredibly lush and green our land is once it’s properly drenched.
As regards the workshops, I’m still planning the dates for 2022 which are soon ready to be published, promised! And I apologise for asking for a little bit more of your patience, hoping that it’ll be worth it! Meanwhile, the 2021 workshops are filling slowly and steadily with all of the full L’Art de Bien Manger culinary immersions now sold out. Yet I might be able to squeeze in another seat for the „Ride of the Valkyries“ (15-17 October 2021), please get in touch with me if you wanted to join this one!
I still have availability for the Mini-L’Art de Bien Manger, the one day culinary immersion, on the following dates:
Redon: 17 of September
Moreau: 23 of October
Happy to answer your questions, just drop me a note at hello@lespoissonchats.com.
And now to the recipe.
What you’ll need
- 4 farm eggs
- 200g sugar
- Half a vanilla bean, scraped out
- 50ml fresh milk
- 180g fine flour
- 150g fresh butter at room temperature
- 25ml of Kirsch
- A pinch of salt
- Two handfuls of cherries with the stones still in
- Icing sugar
How to make it
Preheat the oven at 180°C.
Separate the eggs and whisk the yolks with the sugar and vanilla until the mass is super creamy and light, five minutes should do the job. Add the milk while continuing to whisk. If you’re working with a kitchen robot, exchange the whisk whip for a beater, otherwise work with a wooden spoon. Work in the flour and then slowly add nut-sized morsels of butter while stirring all the time. Don’t add all the butter at once, as it will make it difficult for the mass to take. It takes about ten minutes of stirring to integrate the butter. When the mass is fluffy it’s done. Add the Kirsch and manually fold in the cherries, careful not to squash them.
Then whisk up the egg whites super firm and carefully fold under. Butter a bundt mould and sprinkle the inside with flour. Add the mass and bake for 40 minutes. When the cake is done, leave it in the open oven for another 15 minutes so that it sets. Let cool in the mould.
Before serving, arrange on a nice cake stand and sprinkle with icing sugar.
How to eat it
On a bright summer day out in the fields, between the haystacks, a thermos of coffee in your basket, and the nose in the sun. In case of a rainy summer, like presently, snuggle up on the sofa with a plate of cherry cake and dream of picnics and races and the warm breeze caressing your naked arms.
Les Poissonchats 