0 Sour Cream and Sour Cherries

I don't have much to say about this cherry streusel pound cake except that I received rave reviews and multiple requests for the recipe. It's surprising that everyone liked it so much since I thought it was just okay. Shows you how much I know! I adapted the recipe from Carolyn Weil in Fine Cooking magazine so I can't take full credit for the success. The original recipe called for dried cranberries and buttermilk but I used dried sour cherries (Montmorency variety) and sour cream instead. I also made the cake once with nonfat yogurt and, needless to say, the full fat sour cream version totally kicked the nonfat yogurt version in the booty. But the yogurt version was still well received by my co-workers. There is more sour cream than butter so the pound cake tastes less buttery than a typical pound cake. I think it was that slight tanginess from the sour cream that really won everyone's heart.



Cherry Streusel Pound Cake
(makes one 8.5-inch loaf)

Streusel
1/4 cup (about 1 ounce) walnut pieces
2 tbsp light brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Cake
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 ounces (1 stick / 8 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened at room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup dried cherries, lightly chopped

Preheat oven to 325F. Lightly butter and flour an 8.5x4.5-inch loaf pan.

Combine walnuts, brown sugar and cinnamon in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the walnuts are chopped into small pieces. If you don't want to use a food processor, just chop the walnuts finely and then combine with the sugar and cinnamon.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside dry ingredients.

In the bowl of stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Then add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla extract.

On low speed, add a third of the flour and mix until the flour is just barely combined. Then mix in half of the sour cream. Repeat with another third of the flour, the remaining half of the sour cream and then the last third of the flour. Be sure to mix each time just until barely combined. Stir in the chopped dried cherries with a spoon or spatula.

Spread half the batter into your prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle the streusel over the batter. Spread on the remaining batter. (Alternatively, sprinkle all but 2 tbsp streusel over the first half of the batter. Spread on the remaining batter and then top with the 2 tbsp streusel.)

Bake at 325F until loaf is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean, about 60-75 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Then carefully remove the cake from the pan and let it cool completely on a rack.

~*~

For months I've been waiting for the Williams-Sonoma train cake pan to go on sale but it never did. I'm just not willing to pay $34 for the pan. But I found one for $19 at the Williams-Sonoma outlet in Primm when I was visiting Las Vegas in early December. My nephew loves trains so I wanted to make him a train cake for Christmas. Even though the holidays are long gone I wanted to share.