I got the idea of making chevre and sour cherry cheesecake from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. They have a flavor called “Goat Cheese with Red Cherries” that is one of my very favorite of their summer ice creams–it’s rich, creamy, tangy and fruity all at once. When Zak and I were in Columbus last week, I had a scoop of it and decided that I had to use some of Integration Acre’s fresh chevre and some local sour cherries and turn it all into a cheesecake.

At first, I was just going to do my usual thing and make it into one big cheesecake. But, then, as last week turned into this week, and I remembered that Kat would be out of preschool all week, and I was coming up with activities for the two of us to do together, I knew she wouldn’t have a lot of patience for waiting for a cheesecake to take its normal 50 to 60 minutes to bake, and I’d have to contend with her asking questions for every minute of its baking that would go something like this:

“What’s it doing now, Mommy? Can I see it? Why not? Why’s it taking so long? Is it done yet? Why not? When can we eat it? Why not now?”

Then, of course, after it was baked, it would have to take its usual several hours to cool to room temperature, and then overnight in the refrigerator.

Kat’s head would have exploded with impatience by then, waiting for Mommy to finally cut into the cheesecake.

I needed to speed up the process a bit.

So, I decided to make miniature cheesecakes, which Kat now calls, “Fairy Cheesecakes,” because they are about the right size for a whole passel of fairies to share for a big celebration.

Since I didn’t have mini cheesecake pans with removable bottoms, I went the simple route: I used muffin pans with paper cupcake liners.

Baking cheesecakes in muffin pans is not only simple and you end up with cute, portable, single-portion sized cakes, but the little darlings bake in only 15 minutes–10 if you have a really awesome convection oven like I do. Think about that for a moment. Cheesecake that bakes in 15 minutes that is real, honest to God cheesecake–not a Jello-from-a-box faux cheesecake mix.

Not only that, but they cool quickly and will chill even faster in the refrigerator than their full-sized relatives.

Yep. I’m sold on little baby cheesecakes made in muffin pans.

One caveat–you must use paper liners. Otherwise, they’re nearly impossible to remove from the pans.

Finally, on to the recipe–it’s fast and easy, an makes a great summer time dessert, not only because chevre and sour cherries are seasonal summer favorites, but because the oven doesn’t have to be on warming the kitchen for more than an hour.

That’s fairy magic, right there!

Speaking of fairy magic, I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve finally hit upon a cheesecake recipe that Zak not only just likes, but adores. Previously, with all of my other cheesecakes, he’d have a bite, maybe two, and declare, “It’s pretty good,” and then he’d turn up his nose and refuse to eat any more. This wasn’t exactly a blow to my ego, but it was confusing because Zak loves graham cracker crusts, creamy fillings, fruits, puts thousands of tons of cream cheese on his bagels, and dammit, there was no good reason for him not to worship my cheesecakes like everyone else in the world!

These mini cheesecakes changed all of it. I think it has to do with the crust to filling ratio–not as much filling, so the flavors and textures are more balanced, the tanginess of the goat cheese balances the sweetness of the sugar, and the fluffy texture is beguiling to the senses. The sour cherries are just lovely, and he likes sour fruits, and the hint of cardamom, almonds and almond extract sealed the deal! Finally, a cheesecake for Zak!

Chevre and Sour Cherry Miniature Cheescakes
Ingredients:

1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup roughly ground almonds
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds
4 tablespoons melted butter
12 ounces good, creamy (not chalky) chevre at room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
scant 3/4 cup raw sugar
2 well-beaten eggs
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 pint sour cherries, pitted
1 small jar sour cherry preserves

Method:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 2 standard sized muffin pans with paper cupcake liners to make 12 small cheesecakes.

Mix graham cracker crumbs, chopped almonds and cardamom well. Add butter and mix and toss everything together until the crust starts to stick together nicely and form small to medium clumps.

Divide the crust ingredients evenly between all of the muffin cups and press lightly down on the bottom to form the crust.

To make the cheesecake batter, beat together the two cheeses and sugar until they are smooth and creamy. Add eggs, and extracts and beat well until the mixture is pale yellow and fluffy. Using a tablespoon, fill each depression on the muffin pans halfway with batter. Sink three pitted sour cherries into the batter in each cup, then cover them with more batter, smoothing the top a bit. Sink 3 more cherries into the tops of the cheesecakes, so that they are half-covered with the batter.

Bake for fifteen minutes–ten if you have a convection oven–and allow to cool in their pans on top of a wire rack until you can handle them. Then, remove from pans with the paper liners intact and set the individual cakes on the wire racks to finish cooling to room temperature.

When cool, top each cheesecake with a scant 1/2 teaspoon of sour cherry preserves, just glazing the top of the cakes.

Chill in a sealed container in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Makes 12 cheesecakes, which is enough for 6-12 people, or one blog admin named Dan. (Dan, look for your cheesecakes in a day or so. I have to go to Columbus today, so I won’t be able to bake until tonight or tomorrow morning.)

Last week, while I was taking a bath and Kat was assisting by throwing rubber duckies into the tub on top of me, I decided to attempt to distract her by telling her that we were going to start making cookies this week for the holidays.

And she said my favorite word in the English language. (No, not “chocolate.”)

She stopped, poised in mid-throw, ducky hovering over her head like a bloated blue hummingbird and said, “Why?”

I nearly wept with joy. It was the first time she had asked one of us “why?” about anything! And it was about cookies!

I grinned and said, “Well, making cookies is a tradition at Christmastime. I’ve been baking cookies every Christmas for thirty years, and I hope to be doing it for another thirty.”

“But why, Mommy?”

Why, indeed.

I perked right up, and happily watched as the wee blue ducky, long forgotten, was dropped on the bathmat where it would lurk, waiting to trip me up as I got out of the tub. Putting on my best “Mommy has a minor in history voice” I answered, “All over the world, at this time of year, when the nights get longer and longer and longer and darker and darker, people celebrate the return of the light, as the days slowly start to lengthen and the nights become shorter again. All over the world, people have holidays that celebrate the light, and on those holidays we give gifts, we feast and we make sweets like cookies, to rejoice in teh return of the sun, and the light of hope and love in our hearts.”

It sounded good, and Kat nodded sagely.

I finished and she piped up with, “But what do cookies have to do with light?”

Ah, she thought she got me with that one, but no! I had a ready answer, and it is even historically accurate.

“Well,” I said as I started draining the tub, for the ablutions were completed, the last five minutes of them blissfully duck-free, “long ago before there were refrigerators and grocery stores, people had to grow all of their food and store it for the winter. And sometimes, if the winter was really cold, or the harvest had been bad or if the snows lasted longer than usual, people would start running out of food near the end of winter. So, in the beginning of winter, when there was still plenty of food stored up, people would make and eat fattening foods like cookies and roast meats and cheeses so they could fatten themselves up to live through the winter. That way, if they ran short of food, they had a bit of fat on them to keep them strong until springtime. And the feasting just happened to coincide with the return of the sunlight, so the holiday tradition of making cookies was born.”

So there we are. That’s why we make cookies at Christmas.

Now, as to why I make cookies at Christmas, that is another story. I make them every year, because since I was fourteen years old, that was my holiday job. I did the baking. I made bread, cakes and especially cookies. I wasn’t really allowed to cook anything else in my mother’s kitchen, but since she didn’t much care for baking, and I did it so well, she turned the duty over to me, and I just kept on with it, happily becoming along the way somewhat of a cookie expert.

The first recipes I used were the family ones, handed down from great-grandmothers, a couple of them even coming all the way from Germany. And, of course, I used the Toll House Cookie recipe on the back of the pouch of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate chips. I insisted on using real butter in all of my baking–my Mom liked to use margarine, but I was having none of that. All of the recipes called for butter, and butter is what I used–who was I to argue with my long-dead great grandmothers? You don’t mess with the ancestors, man–they can come back to haunt you. I also insisted on real chocolate chips, and real vanilla extract too. Mom grumbled, but bought the ingredients I specified, and when she tasted the results, she stopped grumbling.

Over the years, I started experimenting, and worked out new recipes, some of which were based on the old family favorites, like my Aphrodite Cakes, which is based on my great-grandmother’s German sugar cookies. Others were based on ideas I had, like what would a cookie with Sichuan peppercorns in it taste like? Would lavender be good in shortbread? What about chilies in a brownie? Why can’t I put toffee chips and cinnamon bits and espresso powder and just use brown sugar in chocolate chip cookies? If Irish Cream is good with cream cheese in brownies, what happens if you add raspberry preserves and Chambord?

That is the cool thing about cookies. They are easy to play with. You can add ingredients, subtract them, change them, modify them by chilling or melting them, and you can almost always, if you have a bit of knowledge about baking, come up with something that will taste amazing. Cakes–they are much trickier, and I would not play as fast and loose with cake recipes as I do with cookies. Pies–well, I play with fillings all the time, but I stick pretty close to the general ideas when it comes to the crust. I will add ingredients and change proportions a little, but not like I do with cookies. Pie crust is too fragile to mess with very much, and cake–it is just finicky.

But cookies are forgiving. They are easy and they are fast and they are fun. So, I love playing around in the kitchen every year and coming up with new and tasty additions to the holiday sweets repertoire.

This year, I wanted to do something new with a chocolate chip cookie.

But I didn’t want to overload it like I did with the Coyote Chip Cookies. Granted, they are lovely, and I like them a great deal, but Zak is not fond of them, and I wanted to make a chocolate chip cookie that both he and I could enjoy together.

What flavors go with chocolate?

Coffee. Been there, done that.

Nuts? Eh–I have to be careful with that, Zak can be weird about nuts. He likes some of them and not others.

Something was niggling at the back of my brain, trying to get my attention and suddenly, I remembered–Zak had just said the other day at the grocery store when we were buying candy canes that he doesn’t know a thing about those because he doesn’t really like peppermint candy, but chocolate covered cherries–those he used to be able to eat by the box.

And what is his favorite (non-Jeni’s) ice cream? Cherry Garcia.

Ah ha! Cherry chocolate chip cookies!

Why had I not thought of it before? What exactly is wrong with me? Dried sour cherries added to the usual Toll House style cookie, with milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet, since Zak prefers the former, and some almonds to help boost the flavor of the cherries and add a bit of crisp texture to the chewy fruit and cookies–perfect!

Yeah, I was right. The tart cherries are chewy and tangy, and you can taste the cherry flavor very well in the golden cookie, and it pairs beautifully with the rich, sweet milk chocolate. Almonds pair perfectly with both chocolate and cherries, and they added some crunch and the whole thing is just soul-satisfying.

He ate three for breakfast this morning. Brittney, who came to take care of Kat while we were in Columbus for my therapy appointment and for Generic Winter Holiday shopping, had one and declared it “Amazing.”

There are a few caveats: one, use Mariani brand dried cherries if you can find them. They are plump, chewy and delightfully tart. You don’t want to use sweet cherries in this–you want to use sour red cherries. Mariani are the best I have come across for baking–they do not dry out and do not require plumping before baking. So, seek them out. Two–toast your almonds before you put them in the cookie dough–it brings out the flavor in them. And three–you can use half semi-sweet chocolate chips and half milk, but I think milk chocolate is better, because it is a better foil for the tart sour cherries than the lightly bitter semi-sweet would be.

It is my new favorite, and here it is–one of my gifts to you this holiday season. Go bake a batch and celebrate the return of the light with a little bit of dietary fat and sugar!

Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour (or 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour and 1 cup white whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cold butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
2 large eggs
12 ounce package milk chocolate chips
6 ounce packaged Mariani dried sour cherries
1 cup sliced almonds, toasted

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Stir flour, salt and baking soda together in a bowl and set aside.

With a mixure, cream together the cold butter and sugars, until well blended and fluffy. add the extracts and eggs, and beat well until mixture is smooth. Add flour mixture in thirds, and mix until well blended. add chocolate chips, cherries and almonds, and stir until combined.

Drop by rounded tablespoonsful onto not greased baking sheets (I line mine with silicone liners) and bake for 9-11 minutes, or until golden brown, but still seeming to be lightly underdone in the center. Remove from oven and allow to cool two minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a rack. Allow to cool until the cookie is still warm to the touch, but is firm and not hot. Place into a container with a tight-fitting lid and seal them up and allow them to cool the rest of the way. (This guarantees a chewy texture to the cookie.)

Makes about three and a half dozen cookies.

It’s like the Zen question–”What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

How many berries can you cram into a batch of muffins before they turn into either a gloppy mess or they fall apart entirely?

I ask these questions, not only because I they are interesting exercises in kitchen science, but because I really like very fruity muffins. This is not a new preference with me–I am the famed creator of “Purple Muffins” which everyone, even avowed muffin-haters (how can you hate a muffin–I mean really?) have liked. The creation of Purple Muffins was an accident–I had an overabundance of wild blackberries one day and put them into a batch of muffins along with some other berries I had bought at the Farmer’s Market and discovered as I stirred the fruit into the batter that wild blackberries are extremely fragile. They break apart at the slightest provocation and spread their inky-purple colored selves all through whatever they are being stirred into.

Which, in this case was muffin batter. And thus, the batter was tinted a vivid hue of reddish violet, a color which surprisingly stayed brilliant all through the baking process. It was a little weird biting into bright purple baked goods, but they really tasted divine, so I guessed it was all fine.

Of course, all of my friends living in Athens thought purple muffins were the coolest thing ever, because not only were they psychedelically colored, they tasted great. So, for every pot luck and summer party, I was begged to make purple muffins. I even baked them for the psychic fairs we held at our book store (yes, Zak and I used to host psychic fairs–we both read Tarot cards, too) and they were always a hit with the metaphysically inclined folk who patronized our shop. (Purple, being the color of aura that indicated a spiritual nature, according to folks who are into such things, is a very popular color among the crystalline company we used to keep, so naturally, anything purple, even muffins, is bound to be if not advanced spiritually, then at least cool and interesting.)

So, I bought a bunch of blackberries, strawberries and raspberries again this weekend at the market and Zak saw them and said, pleadingly, “Make Purple Muffins, please?”

I cannot refuse him when he tips his head like that and gives me the puppy-dog eyes.

So. that is what I set out to do.

But I didn’t want to make either the original Purple Muffin recipe, as I didn’t really want to go digging around for the recipe.

You see, the original recipe is only recorded in one of my journals of those long-ago Athens years when we read Tarot cards and were asked odd questions at the grocery store when we shopped there after midnight such as, “Can you get me any of the works of Paracelsus?” This query from the checkout clerk was answered by. Zak who unblinkingly replied, “Would you be wanting the two volume Waite translation of his hermetic and alchemical writings or the Turner translation of The Archidoxes of Magic?” I mentioned that I wasn’t certain that either of them were still in print, but that we would do what we could to find them. These sorts of conversations only seem to happen in Athens, very often late at night at Krogers. I am sure there is some sort of metaphysical meaning to this. Perhaps the Athens Krogers is located on a ley line or some such.

(I wonder if Paracelsus, alchemist that he was, ever experimented to see how much fruit could be put into muffins without turning them into inedible goo? I somehow doubt it, but it is fun to think about it.)

But, I digress.

Nor did I want to do the ersatz Purple Muffin recipe, which I posted here about four years ago under the title Summer Berry Muffins. There is nothing wrong with that recipe–it is just that they don’t tend to turn out very purple.

So, I decided to experiment.

I wanted to see how many fresh berries I could stir into muffin batter before the mixture refused to bake into anything resembling a muffin. I wanted muffins that were more fruit than muffin, with the batter basically just there to hold the berries together. Why?

Because I felt like it, and because it is a fun exercise. And, because there was a high chance for failure, it being a baking recipe that I was going to muck around with in a rather extreme way. Fruit is juicy, and that can radically change the balance of liquid to solid in a baked good and can thus turn something good into something that will not bake up properly at all.

And, I decided to get Kat in on the action, because if I was going to make a mess of myself and my kitchen, I might as well get the kid all sloppy, too. And in truth, we all ended up in the kitchen, with Zak even taking a turn stirring the berries into the batter roughly in order to get as much purple juice as possible to stain the dough.

It turns out that you can get quite a lot of fruit into a muffin while still having it stick together and bake up into muffins. You have to be careful not to cover them tightly after they are cool, because sugar is hygroscopic, meaning that it will cause baked goods to readily take in moisture from the atmosphere and retain it. (This is part of what sugar does in baked goods besides make them sweet–it also acts as a means to keep them from drying out.) When you have sugar from the batter, as well as the added sugar and native juice from the fruit, if you tightly wrap or cover your baked item, it will get soggy.

I have found that you can keep these Purple Muffins, Version 2.1 unwrapped and on your counter for at least two days with impunity. You might be able to keep them longer, but I wouldn’t know about that, because they didn’t last two days at my house before being consumed with great glee and gusto by Kat, Zak, Brittney, Dan and myself.

One more thing–in the interest of making these muffins a little bit healthier, I did a couple of things. First, instead of sour cream, I used 2% Greek yogurt. It worked fine. I also substituted most of the all-purpose flour with King Arthur’s white whole wheat flour. This also worked fine–there is no discernible difference between muffins made completely with all-purpose flour and those blended with white whole wheat.

I guess that once you have all of that fruit in there, it doesn’t matter if you use healthier flour–it still all tastes good. Well, that and white whole wheat flour has a very mild flavor.

Of course, I ruined the healthier profile of some of the muffins by adding a layer of streusel topping–that delectable mixture of butter, sugar and flour that makes crispy, crumbly, buttery crumbs on the top of baked goods. I did this at the behest of Kat who loves “crumbs” as she calls it. Next time, I will substitute some rolled oats for some of the flour so I won’t feel so bad about adding more sugar and butter to the muffins than is absolutely necessary.

Purple Muffins. Version 2.1
Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup raw or white sugar (raw tastes better)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon zest
1 large egg
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 cup (use a fluid measuring cup) Greek yogurt
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups fresh mixed berries, picked over, rinsed and dried (I used blueberries, quartered strawberries, raspberries and blackberries)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon rolled oats (or you can use 2 tablespoons of the flour and leave out the oats)
2 tablespoons cold butter

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, spices, and lemon zest in a large bowl.

In a smaller mixing bowl, whisk egg until thick and uniformly yellow. Whisk in butter, and continue beating until completely combined.

Add yogurt, milk, and vanilla to the smaller bowl and whisk into the egg and butter mixture until everything is happily combined.

Dump wet ingredients into the dry ingredient bowl and mix well. Add your berries and mix very well, hopefully crushing some of the berries enough that they stain your batter purple. If they don’t, you can’t rightly call the resulting muffins Purple Muffins, now can you? So beat those suckers in there and make that dough Technicolor. You know you want to.

With your hands, combine the remaining four ingredients by kneading it all together until it becomes a clumpy, crumbly mixture.

Either spray your muffin tins with baking spray or line with paper muffin cups. Or use silicone muffin cups on a baking sheet like I do. Using a large ice cream scoop (the kind with the ratchety thing that scrapes the scoop out of of the scooper), or a spoon, portion out the dough, which will be thick and heavy, into the muffin cups. If you don’t have an ice cream scoop, run out and get one for this recipe–this is the best and easiest way to portion out muffin dough without making a godawful mess.

Sprinkle the tops with a bit of the streusel stuff, then pop your muffins in the oven.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, then turn the pans back to front in order to get them to brown evenly. Bake for another 10-15 minutes, for total of 20-30 minutes. (If you have a convection oven as I do, the baking time will be closer to 20 minutes. For a regular oven, it will be more like 25-30 minutes.)

Remove from oven and cool for a couple of minutes in the pan, then remove from the pan and allow to cool on a rack. These are good warm, but even better after they cool completely–then, they are irresistible, as the flavors have really melded together and the berries are no longer molten nuggets of hot death for your tongue.

Makes 12-14 muffins, depending on how large your muffins are. (If you have little loaf pans like I do and only 12 muffin cups, you can put the leftover dough into a loaf pan and make a wee Purple Berry Bread, but remember–that bread will take longer to bake than the muffins. The mini loaf I baked took about thirty-five to forty minutes total to bake.

This recipe is not an original; I adapted it from a recipe I found on All Recipes a while back and have meant to make it ever since.

But, until last weekend, when I was presented with a stellar combination of summer fruits–the last of the summer’s blueberries, fresh wild blackberries, both golden and red raspberries and an unexpected windfall of everbearing strawberries that were the juiciest, sweetest, reddest fruit imaginable, I hadn’t really thought about baking anything for a while.

But then, faced with five of the best summer fruits, and the fact that this was the last time this particular combination of local berries would be available this year–I decided to mark this event with something special–but also something easy, since it was hot and I was in no way in the mood for arguing with pie crust.

Crisps are the best and tastiest way to bake with summer fruits when you are not in the headspace to deal with making pie crust. The dough is easy to put together–basically you mix together flour, brown sugar, rolled oats and some spices–cinnamon is classic, as is nutmeg or cloves–then cut in butter. The fruit is tossed with some sugar and maybe a bit of spices, and is put into a buttered baking dish, then the crisp crust is just sprinkled on top of the fruit and patted down gently. Then you bake it, and serve it warm out of the oven!

So easy!

Well, this recipe is a bit different in that it calls for half of the dough to be patted into the bottom of the baking dish, over which the fruit is dumped and spread. Then, the other half of the dough is sprinkled and patted over the fruit and the baking goes on as usual.

I was intrigued with this idea, because while I love fruit, and prefer fruity desserts to chocolaty ones any day, I also love the oat crusts of fruit crisps. And this method seemed like it would make for a crisp that was twice as good as your usual one with only the top crust. It sort of combines the best of a pie and a crisp–it has two crusts like my favorite kinds of pies and it is easy and full of oaty goodness.

I did modify the recipe a bit. I used more fruit than was called for in the recipe, in large part because I saw no reason not to, and the amount of fruit compared to the amount of crust seemed a bit parsimonious for my taste. And, there was the fact that I had a huge amount of fresh fruit to use, so why not? Instead of the four and a half cups of fruit, I used about seven cups of it, and since the berries were quite sweet, I used the same amount of sugar called for in the filling for the four cup amount.

I also added rosewater to the fruit, because all berries taste better with it, especially bramblefruits like raspberries and blackberries and strawberries are always made even more delicious with a sprinkle of rose flavor.

I added an extra half cup of oats to the dough because I like them, and used cardamom and a bit of dried ginger as well as the cinnamon to flavor it, and left out the nutmeg. (You know, I do like nutmeg, but I prefer it in savory foods than in sweet. I don’t know why, but that is the case–I feel the same way about allspice.)

Kat helped with this dessert–and if you have an older child, like a nine or ten year old, they could probably make this dish all by themselves, with you only helping to put the pan into the oven and take it out when it is done. It is really that simple.

For a nearly three year old, there was still plenty that Kat could do. She helped stir the sugar and rosewater into the berries for them to macerate. Then, she stirred the flour, brown sugar, spices, and oats together. After I cut the butter into the dough, she (with very clean hands, of course) helped me mush the butter into the mixture very well–a step the original recipe leaves out. I find that it makes a more crunchy, crispy crust if you fully blend the butter into the dry ingredients by massaging it all together.

Besides, Kat and I thought it was a whole lot of fun!

And, of course, Kat helped eat the results of her labor. She loved it–and who wouldn’t, really? Buttery crunchy crust with lots of sweet berries oozing with brilliant magenta, blue and purple juices–it really was heaven in a bowl.

Now, if only I had thought to make vanilla chai ice cream to put on top.

Next year.

But for this year, I can make an everbearing strawberry crisp with vanilla rosewater ice cream.

Or a peach melba crisp (peaches and raspberries) with vanilla chai ice cream.

Don’t those sound wonderful?

Until then, here is the recipe–remember, you can use just about any fruits to make a crisp.

Summer Berry Crisp
Ingredients:

6-7 cups of mixed fresh summer berries, trimmed and sliced as needed
4 tablespoons raw sugar
1 tablespoon rosewater (optional)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant oatmeal!)
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground dried ginger
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 1/2 cups cold butter

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, toss together the berries with sugar and rosewater. Allow to sit and macerate while you prepare the crust.

In another large bowl, stir together flour, oats, brown sugar and spices. Cut in butter until crumbly, then with clean hands massage the dough until it is smoother, but still with crumbly bits.

Press half of the dough into the bottom of a glass 9″X13″ pan. Dump in the berries and spread them about until they cover the bottom crust.

Sprinkle the remaining dough over the berries and lightly press them into the berries with gentle pats of your fingers.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the fruit juice is bubbly and thick and the crust is golden brown. (If you have a convection oven like I do–the baking will take about 25-35 minutes, depending on how golden brown you like the crust of your crisps to be. I baked mine for thirty minutes exactly and it was perfect.)

Serve warm, with or without sweetened whipped cream or ice cream on top.

I like simple, unfussy desserts like tea cakes or fruit crumbles in the summertime because I prefer to showcase the natural flavors of seasonal fruits than play with finicky torte layers or rich buttercreams when it is hot and sticky outside. When it is hot, I don’t really want to eat much in the first place, but it is a shame to not use fruit in its season when it is at the height of freshness. Sure, I eat plenty of berries and cherries out of hand in their natural state, but I also like to try showcase them in new and different baked goods each year.

This Sour Cherry Almond Tea Ring is an example of the kind of baked goodie I like in the summer–full of fresh fruit, and made simply without a bazillion futzy steps that would try my patience enough on a nice cold blustery winter day, but on a summer day become so onerous as to seem impossible.

You could serve this cake as a dessert, or have it as a breakfast sweet to accompany coffee or tea.

You could use any sort of summer berry or cherry you like for the filling and topping, and you could start with frozen instead of fresh. I like sour cherries myself, but you could use sweet cherries instead. I tend to use less sugar in my sour cherry sweets than most cooks–because I see no reason to take sour cherries and add so much sugar to them that they lose their character. If you are going to do that, use sweet cherries! (The recipes that I really don’t understand are the ones that start with sour cherries, add a gigantic amount of sugar to sweeten them, and then some lemon juice to bring out the acidity again. How about just using less sugar in the first damned place, or does that just make too much sense for some folks?)

The amount of sugar I used in the fruit filling/topping is variable. You might find the results with my measurement to be too tart for your palate, and that is fine–add more sugar. Or, if you are using blueberries instead, use less sugar because they are inherently sweeter. Blackberries might take the same amount of sugar as the cherries or a little more or less depending on their character.

You can also leave out the nuts entirely or use different ones to reflect your taste. Walnuts would be great with blueberries, while pistachios would be wonderful with raspberries.

Finally, you can use sour cream instead of Greek style yogurt for the cake batter. Either yogurt or sour cream will lend a tender, moist texture to the cake while giving a subtle tang to its flavor profile. I have found you can save some calories by using lower fat yogurt instead of the sour cream without sacrificing texture or flavor at all.

Anyway, without further ado, here is a recipe meant to help you start your week on a not-too-sweet but still delectable note.

Sour Cherry Almond Tea Ring
Ingredients for Streusel:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1 /2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
6 tablespoons butter

Ingredients for Fruit Filling/Topping:

3 cups fresh sour cherries, pitted
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons cold water

Ingredients For Cake:

1 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup Greek yogurt or sour cream
2 eggs lightly beaten to combine yolks and whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used Penzey’s Double Strength)
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
zest from 1 lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Prepare a tube shaped cake pan with butter and flour or oil and flour spray. Set aside.

Mix together dry ingredients for streusel topping. Cut in butter with pastry blender, fork or two knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.

Mix together all ingredients for cherry filling/topping except the cornstarch. Allow to stand until the sugar pulls some juice from the fruit–about 20 minutes. Put into a pan on the stove and bring to a boil and cook for about five minutes. Pour in cornstarch mixture, and stirring constantly, cook until it is thickened and glossy–about three to five more minutes. Pour into a metal bowl and allow to cool until you can dip your finger comfortably into the fruit without burning yourself terribly.

Beat butter and sugar on high speed until the mixture is creamy. Add in the yogurt, eggs, extracts, and lemon zest and juice and beat until well combined. Mix together remaining dry ingredients until well combined, then add to batter mixture and beat on low speed until just combined. Do not overbeat.

Scrape 2/3 of the cake batter into the pan, and spread it to cover the bottom of the pan completely. (The batter is quite thick and doesn’t pour) Put 1 cup of the cherry filling over the cake by dropping it by spoonsfuls and spreading it gently. Dot the top of the cherries with the remaining third of the batter and spread it to mostly cover the cherries.

Crumble streusel over the top of the cake and put into the preheated oven. Bake for 45- 50 minutes (if you have a convection oven, bake for 35-40 minutes.)

Remove and cool on rack. Remove from pan while still lightly warm to the touch and pour remaining cherries over the top of the cake just before serving. (I like it best slightly warm from the oven.)

If you have extra sliced almonds, sprinkle them on top of the cherries as a garnish–I, alas, did not have any last night!