In the post-Soviet space, everyone knows the cake with cherry and sour cream “Drunk Cherry”. However, not everyone knows how to cook this delicious dessert. The biggest mistake in the process of cooking this famous cake is adding too strong alcohol of dubious quality both for soaking and for macerating cherries. Such a step can ruin any dessert.
The taste can also spoil a greasy butter cream or the use of low-quality berries. In this pie, as in any dessert or dish, the harmony of taste should be observed. This requires a reasonable, conscious approach to the preparation of the famous sweets. We bring to your attention an improved version of the legendary dessert “Drunken Cherry”. So, the recipe for a cake with cherry and sour cream! Where to begin? What products will be needed? What are the secrets of cooking? Read more about this in the article!
Cake with cherry and sour cream: features of the dessert
The key ingredient in the Drunken Cherry pie is the cherries themselves, which must be of excellent quality. Berries in alcohol can be either purchased or prepared on their own. The cake should be based on a chocolate-like tender and light biscuit. The cream is prepared on the basis of a classic cream with the addition of butter and cherry liqueur. The cake comes out light and full of flavor. Cherry successfully complements the overall taste of the cake, enriching the tenderness of cakes and the chocolate taste of topping. A very important element of a chocolate cake with cherry is sour cream.
And compliance with the rules of its preparation is extremely important for a successful result! The cake should be juicy, well-soaked and not dry. To achieve this, it must be greased with cream at least a day before the scheduled moment of serving the dessert so that it can be infused overnight. Only in this case will it have the desired texture. In general, the process of making a cake is not so much complicated as it is responsible. Everything else, it is incredibly simple to decorate. Although for a person with a rich imagination, the process of decorating a cake can be interesting, because there are no strict rules in the design of a cake. The only rule in the preparation of the cake is strict adherence to the recipe.
Grocery list
The list of ingredients needed to make a cake with sour cream and cherry includes the following products for one cake with a diameter of 24 cm:
- 1 chocolate biscuit;
- 1 serving of cherries in alcohol;
- 250 ml of tincture of cherry;
- 1/2 portion of sour cream at room temperature;
- 150 g butter at room temperature.
For chocolate coating:
- 300 ml cream of 30% fat;
- 200 g of crushed dark chocolate;
- 20 g butter.
(Optional) To decorate in the form of chocolate leaves, we need bitter chocolate.
Stage one: drunk cherry
If you plan to cook a cake in advance, then you can safely try to make cherries in alcohol yourself. As easy as pie! Prepare the following products:
- 2 cups cherries (fresh or frozen);
- 1/2 liter of strong alcohol;
- 1/4 cup sugar.
So, all that needs to be done is pour the cherries with alcohol and add the indicated amount of sugar.
Put in a cool dark place for 2 weeks. After 14 days, the drunk cherry - one of the main elements of the cake - will be ready!
Second stage: preparing a biscuit
So, the cake in the “Drunken Cherry” cake is a biscuit. It has a soft texture, and when properly impregnated, it takes on a pleasant, moist and delicate texture. So, before you start baking cakes, make sure that the following products are available in the kitchen:
- 5 eggs, proteins and yolks separately;
- ½ cup sugar;
- 1.5 cups of wheat flour;
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder;
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda.
All ingredients should be at room temperature. Flour, powder, baking soda - passed through a sieve.
Put the egg whites in a bowl. Beat to a firm foam, gradually adding sugar at the end of whipping. Beat egg yolks in a separate container until creamy mousse is obtained. Combine both mixtures and mix thoroughly with a mixer at a slow speed.
Add pre-sieved dry ingredients and mix gently with a whisk.
Pour the dough into a mold measuring 25 x 35 cm. Do not forget to put parchment paper on the bottom for baking. Lubricate the mold walls with oil if desired.
It is necessary to bake cake at 180ºC for 40-45 minutes or until the so-called dry stick. Leave to cool in the oven. After cooling, remove the biscuit from the mold.
If you want to give your cake a chocolate flavor, then at the stage of combining liquid and dry ingredients, just add a few tablespoons of dried cocoa to the dough: due to it, the biscuit will have a chocolate flavor and mouth-watering color.
The third stage: we prepare sour cream
The “Drunk Cherry” cake has a special taste due to the cream with which it is stuffed. In order to prepare a cream that will become the main element of the future dessert, it is necessary to grind soft butter and add sour cream to it, thoroughly mixing these two ingredients. At the same stage, it is necessary to add 2/3 of the total cherry volume to the cream. Do not forget to first remove the seeds from it, as well as coarsely chop. You can also add 50 ml of cherry tincture to the filling. Mix well. Now you know the recipe for sour cream cake "Drunk Cherry"!
The fourth stage: we begin to form a cake
From the chocolate biscuit, cut the top layer a little more than 0.5 cm thick. Using a knife and helping yourself with a spoon, carefully empty the biscuit cake from the inside, leaving the walls about 1 cm thick.
Place the biscuit pulp in a separate container, chop and generously pour the cherry tincture. Now mix it with a ready-made cream and butter cream. At this stage, you need to move the resulting filling into a hollow sponge cake.
Please note: at this stage, the filling will have a liquid consistency. Nevertheless, do not worry! Over time, the biscuit cake absorbs part of the liquid, and the cream hardens, taking the correct consistency.
Cover the cake with the cut out top layer of cake and brush with the remaining tincture. In this form, put the sponge cake with cherry and sour cream in the refrigerator for 8 hours, where it "ripens".
Fifth stage: prepare chocolate icing
Chocolate icing should be prepared on the day the cake is served. For this purpose, in a small saucepan, heat the cream and butter almost to a boil. Remove from heat and add crushed chocolate. Mix thoroughly with a whisk to achieve a uniform consistency.
Place the drunk cherry cake on the wire rack and pour it with the resulting glaze. Place in the refrigerator so that the chocolate surface of the dessert freezes.
Sixth stage: decorate the cake
Chocolate leaf decoration is incredibly simple. Perhaps this is even the lightest of all chocolate decorations. With this decoration, the cherry cake and sour cream look like you spent a lot of time on it.
To make chocolate leaves, melt the dark chocolate in a water bath. The desired leaves (fresh leaves of any plant can serve as a stencil), wash well and dry thoroughly with a paper towel. Using a brush, apply a thick layer of chocolate on the inside of the leaves. Place them on a plate or board and refrigerate. Within an hour, the chocolate leaves should harden.
To separate the chocolate from the greens, you need to remove the leaves from the refrigerator and hold them for 2 minutes at room temperature. Then carefully pull the stems, carefully separating them from the chocolate. Immediately place the leaves on a cake with cherry and sour cream.
Be careful: if you want to separate the leaves immediately after taking them out of the refrigerator, this can be dangerous, because frozen thin chocolate is too fragile. However, if you over-hold the chocolate at room temperature, then the leaves will become soft and it will be more difficult to separate the chocolate part. Therefore, it is very important not to miss the right moment.
Tip: the surface of the products can also be covered with gold, edible confectionery dust. The top of the cake can also be decorated with cherries.
Enjoy your meal!
That's all! You can safely serve the dish on the table. As you can see, the “Drunk Cherry” cake, in spite of the fact that it has an incredibly refined taste, is prepared very simply.
But as a reward for patience and zeal, in any case, you will get a delicious dessert and delighted reviews of those who have to try the legendary biscuit cake (it is worth noting that it is undesirable for children because of the high level of alcohol content). We wish you bon appetit and new culinary achievements and masterpieces!