The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Apple Cherry Cake Following Terike

varda's picture
varda

Apple Cherry Cake Following Terike

One of my New Years resolutions was to make something following the beautiful creations of Terike.    While I didn't expect to match her artistry, one has to start somewhere, and why should she have all the fun.  I chose her incredibly beautiful and appetizing  Apple Plum Cake to start.     However, no plums this time of year, so I decided to substitute the nice Chilean sweet cherries that have been showing up in the supermarket.    This particular post had a good ingredient list, and some very nice pictures of the process, so I had enough to move forward.    However, since there were no instructions I had to make things up as I went along, and have no idea if I did anything like the right thing.   Here is what I did.

Ingredients

Milk  100g  -- used 1% - whole milk probably better

Sugar  23g

Salt    5g

Butter   25g  -- unsalted

Egg Yolk  1 at 18g

Yogurt  50g   -- used very thick, rich yogurt made at greek grocery.

Flour   300g  -- used Heckers unbleached AP

Instant Yeast  10g

Egg white for egg wash

Yogurt, sugar, half cherries, and half apple slices for filling.

Scald milk in microwave for 1 minute.   Remove and mix in butter to melt.   Let milk cool to warm.   Add all ingredients but egg white and filling.   Mix in mixer and by hand for a few minutes (dough is very dry)  until it comes together and is flexible.    Let rest in bowl for 30 minutes.   Cut off a chunk of dough and roll out with rolling pin until around double length to width and wide enough for filling (around 2.5 inches.)   Cut in half.   Place dab of yogurt in center of one of the halves.  Sprinkle with sugar.   Place a half apple slice and two cherry halves on top of the yogurt.   Take the other piece of dough and place over the top.   Press the edges of the top dough onto the edges of the bottom dough.   Then cut off the corners to make it sort of round.   Pick up the roll and press the edges together tightly all around.   Place in an oiled ceramic 9 inch pie pan.   Continue until 7 rolls are made.   There should be a fair amount of dough left over.   Roll strips of dough out and decorate away.   Try to make cool little doodahs to place on top of the rolls and here and there among the strips of dough.    Then cover and place in the refrigerator (as perhaps you forgot that you couldn't stay at home to see this through.)   A few hours later, remove from refrigerator, and preheat oven to 400F.   After the pie plate warms up (around 30 minutes) brush the top with egg white, and sprinkle liberally with sugar (including a bit of red sugar.)   Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350.   Bake for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 300.   Bake for 10 minutes until all the rolls are browned (and hopefully none are burned.)   Remove, cool, cut and pass out to eagerly waiting family members.  

I feel quite certain that Terike's description of how she did this would be not even close to mine, even notwithstanding the Hungarian.  

Since I have not ever made something even remotely like this, I welcome any suggestions for how this could be done better. 

 

Comments

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

New Year's resolution.  You've set a high goal, a good thing,  and trying to reach it will be a pleasure to watch! Nice first shot at  Terike's masterpiece.  I always thought she uses a piping bag for the intricate work ? 

Very nice Varda!

varda's picture
varda

I hope that Terike will see this and give me a few pointers but I don't think she is on the site very much, so probably not.   Making this sure made me appreciate her skills even more.   This is a yeast dough, and I am thinking you could not pipe it, although I'm not sure.    But the dough is extremely easy to manipulate and roll into strands.    Thanks so much for your encouragement.   -Varda

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Looks pretty good to me.

nice job.

ian

varda's picture
varda

Well the good thing is that it doesn't need to reach Terike's level to taste really good.   Phew!   Thanks for the comment.  -Varda

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

This certainly looks a whole lot better than anything I could do!  (I dare not even try what Terike does!) Looks like everything rose evenly and that your 'decorations' stood up to the oven heat without burning despite them being so much smaller than the main dough.  The filling looks delicious.  I can't imagine that it lasted very long.

Janet

varda's picture
varda

Hey Janet,   That was one of the challenges.    The decorations were starting to get dark when the center roll looked uncooked.    I tried to deal with it by turning the heat down, but maybe I should have had it lower for the whole bake.   The filling was tasty, and you are right that these disappeared in a heartbeat.    Thanks so much.  -Varda

breadforfun's picture
breadforfun

...what could be bad.  In fact, it looks great Varda.  The apple and cherry combo sounds delicious.

-Brad

varda's picture
varda

you are right that there's nothing there not to like.   I just have no idea if my times were even close, and temperatures and method and so forth.    And of course I would need an apprenticeship to get the decorations right.   I have never baked with fresh cherries before.   Yum!  Thanks so much.  -Varda

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

I love anything that contains cherries.  Looks delicious, I wish I had one right now.   Nice artistic work, and I'm sure this bread was as enjoyable to create as it was for everyone to eat, and that's what counts.

Sylvia

varda's picture
varda

next time I'll feel a bit more confident now that I have some experience.    These did taste really excellent.   I would hazard to guess that the cherry version holds its own with the plum.   Next time I think I'll try to draw a picture of the decorations in advance, so I am not just laying dough down willy nilly.   And there will have to be a next time, on any occasion when I need wife points.  (You may not be as familiar with this concept as with husband points.)   Thanks Sylvia.  -Varda