Hungarian Sour Cherry Cake

On her blog Edible Living, Sarah Copeland writes about the sour cherries one finds in Hungary during the summer. As it happens, both cherries and Hungarian cookery have been on my mind lately, so I was all ears and pupils when I came across her family recipe for a Hungarian sour cherry cake. I’ve tweaked it to accommodate a standard 9” x 13” Pyrex baking dish and to take advantage of a 2-pound jar of sour cherries I’d put up in the brief period we get them here in San Diego.

Whole wheat flour is not something I use much around the Whiskey Forge, but I’m very glad not to have substituted white flour as was my original intent. It provides a sturdy — but not too heavy — framework for the cherries. Sweet, but not too sweet. The day I made it, I had some for tea n the afternoon. What was left of it the next night, we had with a cardamom-orange ice cream I’d made the week before.

Hungarian Sour Cherry Cake

2 lbs/900g pitted canned sour cherries, drained
8 oz/230g unsalted butter
1.5 cups/200g sugar
3 Tbl/45ml brandy or kirsch (I used the Jepson’s Rare Alembic Brandy)
1 tsp/15ml vanilla extract
1 egg
2.25 cups/350g whole wheat flour
1 Tbl/15ml baking powder
.75 tsp/3.5ml kosher salt
1 cup/250ml milk
Butter and flour for the pan

Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a 9” x 13" Pyrex baking dish and dust with flour; set aside. In a Kitchenaid mixer or large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, brandy/kirsch, and vanilla on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Add the egg; beat until incorporated.

In a medium bowl, whisk together whole wheat flour, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer running on low speed, alternately add flour mixture and milk in 3 batches to make a batter. Spoon the batter onto reserved baking sheet and smooth evenly. Sprinkle cherries over the top and press slightly into the thick batter. Bake until cake is golden brown, 40-45 minutes. Let cake cool 30 minutes, then cut into squares or bars.

Goes well with:

• Sarah Copeland’s story about the cake
• Saveur magazine published Copeland’s recipe for this short cake dotted with cherries

Donnie’s Spice Mix and Louis Szathmary’s Chef’s Salt

Cooks around the world — and companies that cater to them — create seasoning mixes to speed and streamline cooking. It’s so much easier to reach for a jar or a shaker holding a mix than to try to measure a teaspoon of this and a quarter-teaspoon of that while the stove is on and the pan spattering.

Donnie's, not yet mixed

Of course, there are foreign mixes with familiar names that aren’t necessarily part of our everyday cooking. Think of France’s quatre épices, Indian garam masala, ras al hanout from North Africa, or Chinese five-spice powder. Closer to home, we have Lowry’s and Mrs. Dash with their respective seasoning salts, while Tony Chachere spices Louisiana dishes in homes far beyond his own, and it seems that California serial restaurateur Juanita Musson barely knew a dish that couldn’t benefit from a dash of Vege-Sal.

Poke around my cabinets and you’ll find a few such mixes. I’m partial to several from Penzey’s, the Midwestern spice monger. Two jars in particular I never let go empty: chef’s salt from a recipe by Hungarian chef Louis Szathmary and — a recent addition to the larder and a bigger jar — Donald Link’s mixture he calls Donnie’s Spice Mix from his book Real Cajun.

This chef’s salt is one I’m likely to use to season roast beef, to strew on hot candied pecans, or to spike potatoes roasted in duck fat or (as my great-grandmother called it) goose grease.

Louis Szathmary’s Chef’s Salt

1 cup of salt
1 Tbl Spanish paprika
1 tsp black pepper, ground
¼ tsp white pepper, ground
¼ tsp celery salt
¼ tsp garlic salt

Mix and store in a dry place. In The Chef’s Secret Cook Book (1971), Szathmary notes: “Be sure to use garlic salt, not garlic powder. If you use garlic powder, a small pinch is enough.”

Link’s seasoning mix, on the other hand, has no salt at all. It’s a more pungent mix with a warm, mellow bite. If you use it, you’ve got to add salt separately. I tend to double the recipe each time I make it and it helps my budget that I buy spices in bulk at a nearby market with a substantial Middle Eastern customer base.

Donnie’s Spice Mix

4 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon ground white pepper
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon garlic powder

Again, mix and store in a dry place. For the chili powder, I use pure ground New Mexican red chile rather than a commercial chili mix. It's your kitchen: use the powder you want. Just make sure it's long on flavor and has some oomph.

This one I use on eggs, in gumbos, in various soups, meats for the grill, and vegetable dishes. It’s the spice mix I reach for when I open the cabinet door and am not sure what I want. I’ve grilled great lamb chops by mixing this in equal measure with ground cumin then adding salt and a small dash of oil. Despite the cayenne, it’s not a blistering hot spice mix. I’m lavish with this stuff. When the paprika costs about $8 a pound, I can afford to be.

Goes well with:

• You rarely got what you wanted at Juanita’s Restaurant, but you got a lot of it, a reminiscence of muumuu-wearing, customer-beating, eat-it-or-wear-it restaurateur Juanita Musson.
• PDFs of many articles Szathmary wrote for Hungarian Heritage Review, most with recipes.
• My notes on Donald Link’s Real Cajun, including his recipe for smothered pork.