dessert – Page 7 – Courage in the Kitchen

Over four thousand years ago, a scribe in Sumeria (modern-day southern Iraq) wrote down the recipe for beer on a clay tablet. He composed it as a hymn to Ninkasi, the goddess of beer and brewing. The name means “The Lady who fills the mouth,” and the hymn may have been written to help apprentice brewers memorize the ingredients and method to make one of the staple foods of early civilizations.

About four hundred years later, the first known cookbook was written during the time of Hammurabi, famous for the Code of Hammurabi. Thus, this famous king of Babylon (also in Iraq) is responsible not only for giving us the first law book but also for a collection of twenty-five recipes probably enjoyed by him and his court. Twenty-one are meat stews and four are vegetable stews.

The recipe for Jerri’s Cherry Torte is not as old as those from ancient Iraq nor was it stamped in cuneiform on clay tablets, but nevertheless, it has an interesting history. I found the recipe while reading The Krehbiel Family Cookbook compiled by Lynne, Jerri’s oldest niece, to preserve recipes that she and her three sisters enjoyed while growing up near Medicine Lodge, Kansas. Concluding the recipe was a note that Jerri served this dessert when Jerri’s oldest brother, Lynne’s dad, brought his family to visit us in Murray, Kentucky.

When I asked Jerri where she got the recipe, she said it had to be from one of her older cookbooks, since I did not begin my cookbook buying binge until we had left Kentucky. We checked that small collection beginning with The Joy of Cooking, Liz Specials, and Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two. Nothing even close. Then she exclaimed, “I’ll bet it was from the cookbook I got from my Home Ec teacher in high school.”

Sure enough. It took some doing to find the old book since the spine is gone and it is hard to spot on the shelf, but on page 250 of Food From Famous Kitchens is the recipe for Cherry Torte. In Jerri’s neat handwriting is a note: “Very good.” That is true enough, but it is also very simple to make, which may help explain why Lynne included it in their family cookbook.

I value simple recipes that taste good too. If you feel the same way, give this easy recipe a try.

INGREDIENTS:

For the torte:
16 oz. can of red sour pitted cherries
1 large egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 T butter
1 tsp. almond extract
1/3 cup chopped nuts
6 oz. cream cheese
2 T milk

For the cherry sauce:

1/4 cup sugar
1 T corn starch
1/8 tsp. salt
Water
Reserved cherry liquid
2 tsp. lemon juice
1/8 tsp. red food coloring

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 350º and grease and line an 8 by 2-inch round cake pan with waxed paper.

Drain the cherries and reserve the liquid. Beat the egg until lemon colored, gradually add the sugar and beat thoroughly. Stir in the well-drained cherries.

Sift the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon into the cherry mixture and mix well. Melt and stir in the butter and almond flavoring. Turn the batter into the cake pan and sprinkle the nuts evenly on top.

Bake at 350º for forty to forty-five minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes our clean, the torte is done. Invert the pan on a rack and cool the torte .

Make the cherry sauce while the torte is baking.

Mix the sugar, corn starch and salt together in a small saucepan. Add enough water to the reserved cherry juice to make one cup. Stir the liquid gradually into the sugar mixture and put the pan over medium heat. Stir constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. Boil for one minute. Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in the lemon juice and food coloring.

To serve, cut the cooled torte into wedges. Blend together the cream cheese and milk. Put a spoonful on each wedge and and top with cherry sauce.

When Pearl told me about this recipe, I was a little skeptical: Orange slice candy in a cake? You may ask yourself the same question, but after making and eating this version of a holiday fruitcake, I am happy to recommend it.

I still prefer my Four in One Fruitcake, but Helen’s Orange Fruitcake is an excellent alternative for people who don’t like traditional fruitcake with lots of nuts and candied fruits. As one wit wrote, “It is a good fruitcake for people who don’t want any fruit in their fruitcake.” Of course, it does have dates, which are fruits.

We liked the cake, but seemed a little dry to me. I wanted to make sure that I had not overbaked the smaller cakes, so I shared samples with three of our neighbors. They all said they thought it was delicious. After trying the cake I gave her, Pearl called to say that it was exactly like it was supposed to be.

If I can make it on the first try, so can you. Here how to do it.

INGREDIENTS:

For the cake:
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
4 cups all-purpose flour plus a little to help mix the fruit
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 lb. dates
1 lb. orange slices
1 cup flaked coconut
2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans

For the glaze:
1 cup orange juice (fresh or from frozen concentrate)
1 lb. powdered sugar (2 to 3 cups)

PROCEDURE:

Cream the butter and shortening with the sugar in a medium mixing bowl, then incorporate the eggs one at a time and stir in the buttermilk. Sift the flour and baking soda by cupfuls into the sugar and egg mixture to make a rather thick batter.

Preheat the oven to 225º and grease and flour three five by seven-inch loaf pans or more smaller loaf pans that will hold a total of about three and a half quarts of batter.

Chop the dates and nuts and orange slices fine. Put them in a large mixing bowl along with the flake coconut. Sprinkle with a little flour and mix to blend the ingredients evenly. Pour the batter over the fruits, candy and nuts and mix with your hands to blend all the ingredients.

Distribute the batter evenly into the three prepared pans and bake for three hours at 225º. If using smaller loaf pans, reduce the baking time and test for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of the smaller cakes after two hours. If the toothpick comes out clean, the cakes are done.

Shortly before the cakes are ready to come from the oven, make the glaze by mixing the orange juice and powdered sugar.

Take the cakes from the oven and allow them to cool slightly for five minutes. Pour the glaze evenly over the hot cakes and leave them in the pans until completely cool. Remove the cakes from the pans, wrap them with plastic film and refrigerate them for at least three days before serving.

NOTES: Pearl says that this is a very sweet but very good cake. Cut thin slices for serving. It is an old family recipe from her neighbor Helen.

You may need to add a little more buttermilk to get the batter to the right consistency. It should be thick but fluid enough to spread out over the dry ingredients as you scrape it into the bowl.

If you bought shredded rather than flaked coconut by mistake, don’t panic. Shredded coconut works just fine.

This cake continues to improve for at least two weeks. The last few slices we ate were delicious.