Cherry Dumplings

Say there's a typical, i.e., "normal" recipe.  Then there's an unusual recipe, one I've never seen before with directions that need their own instruction manual.  Which one would I choose? Hello, cherry dumplings.   It didn't hurt that the recipe's author, Mrs. Harley (Beatrice) E. Teague wrote "Really delicious" on the recipe card.

I love the challenge of  making something new to me because when the risk pays off, the reward is even sweeter.  (On the other hand, this behavior does lead to a lot of failures and sometimes tears.)

These cherry dumplings are made like chicken and dumplings (the dough is dropped into a boiling pot to cook), not like Chinese-style dumplings in which cherries are encased in a smooth dough wrapper.

It all started out well, boiling some pitted sour cherries with some sugar.  (You can read here about pitting the cherries.) While that was happening, I made the dumpling batter.

I dropped the batter by spoonfuls into the boiling cherry mixture and said a prayer.

A few of the dumplings took a cherry bath, i.e., submerged.  I wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not.

I let them cook for a while until the batter seemed cooked through.

What I should have done:  Googled cherry dumplings before I began.  As you might imagine, there were not a lot of recipes, but every one said to cover the pot.  Which makes sense, because the dumplings would steam beautifully.  Well, maybe next year, though these were pretty good.

Below is the recipe card for all you adventurous souls out there. For everyone else,  I've provided an instruction manual, i.e., I've translated and interpreted the recipe.

Cherry Dumplings

Place in a medium saucepan:
3 cups pitted sour cherries
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water

Boil until sugar dissolves and cherries begin to soften.

Meantime, mix:
1 cup flour
2 T. sugar
pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Cut in (with two knives, a pastry blender, or in a food processor:
4 T butter

When the mixture is of uniform size, add and mix until combined:
 1/2 cup of milk

Drop batter by spoonfuls into boiling cherry mixture.  Lower the heat, cover the pan and cook until the dumplings are done.

Cherrie Delight

I simply could not resist the rare sour cherries at the farmer's market on Saturday and, having purchased two boxes, I began a search for vintage recipes (a process which involves carpeting my dining table with hundreds of recipe cards).  These tart cherries (in season for just five minutes each year) shine in baked goods; eating them out of hand, well, not so much.

Luckily, I found two intriguing recipes and so, just in time for July 4th, I present the first: Cherrie Delight.  Yes, I realize that the author, one Charlotte M. Swanson, misspelled cherry, but she typed this card way before the advent of personal computers and its wonderful sidekick, spell check.

This is an absolutely delicious dessert, though not sure if it's a cookie or a cake.  But it is, as the recipe promises, a delight.

The real work in making these is pitting the cherries, a messy task made much easier with a high quality cherry pitter. Though I typically eschew kitchen tools used only for a single esoteric purpose, I make an exception for this device.

After the batter is made, add in the good stuff -- the cherries and nuts -- with an old-fashioned wood spoon.

Pour into an 8 x 8 inch pan, which you've greased and floured.  I neglected to flour the pan and struggled to release the cake.

Bake until the top is a lovely golden color and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Here's the recipe below.  While I normally follow these recipes exactly, I did make some changes on this one.
I increased the butter to four tablespoons, as one teaspoon (a tiny amount) seemed like a typo.
I did not add the cherries until the end -- adding them before the flour would crush them, I feared.
Dissolving the baking soda in warm water was de rigueur  before modern baking soda was perfected, but I still followed the instructions here, using about 1/3 cup of water.
Add the salt with the flour.

Since I have some pitted cherries left over, I hope to make a really unusual recipe tonight, Cherry Dumplings, if (and that's a big IF), I can crack the code on the very unclear instructions, and the DH will forgive me for lighting the oven when it's 90 degrees. Stay tuned.