Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Cherry Brown Butter Bars


These little guys are...dangerous to me. And by "dangerous" I mean "make me have too many thoughts". But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Summertime=cherries in the mind of spiker. I love them. I could live on a diet of fresh cherries alone and be completely content. When I was pregnant with Prima I stopped at the grocery store on my way to work every morning (during the summer months), bought a pound of fresh cherries and ate them all for breakfast. They made me sooo happy. My midwives scolded me for eating so much fruit and told me my baby would be huge. She arrived 6 weeks early, and yes, huge for her gestational age (a whopping 5 lbs., 8 oz.), which is probably why she never had to have oxygen supplementation or a feeding tube, and came home after only 6 days in the NICU. I owe it all to those 50 pounds of cherries I ate that summer!


So, needless to say, when I saw cherries in the grocery store for the first time this season, I wanted to find an amazing recipe to use them in. Searched and searched and found...a dearth of fresh cherry recipes on the internet. I guess people don't bake with them so much. And why is that? I'm a little mystified. But, I did find at smitten kitchen, this recipe for Cherry Brown Butter Bars. Perfect.

I have never made anything before that required brown butter. Holy. The smell when it's browned is probably the best thing I've ever smelled. And the slightly brown sugary, almost smoky flavor that it gives to these bars is...heavenly. I am going to have to find a way to use brown butter in...more recipes. Maybe even some that don't call for it at all. Didn't Julia have something brilliant to say about butter?


Now, back to the ideas running around in my head...the bars are perfect just as they are...buttery, crispy, delicious little morsels with just a little fruit to cut through it. But, the mind boggles at the possibilities. You could leave the cherries out completely and make the most buttery Blondies in the world. Then you could top those with a drizzle of dark chocolate sauce, or a raspberry coulis, or you could replace the cherries with pears, or raspberries, or god forbid, chocolate-covered toffee bites! I know, it's getting a little out of hand over here.


TGIP Rating--Cherry Brown Butter Bars--KEEPER. Try alterations.

Next up: The Priestess just turned me on to The Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit. You should know that in general, I prefer regular-size cakes over cupcakes. But she has some very intriguing recipes that I'd love to try as full-size cakes. For now, I want to give a test run to her recipes by making cupcakes for the cast of the show I'm in. I think I'll do Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting.

P.S. I think this is my favorite of all the photos I've taken for my blog.

1 comment:

Summer said...

I made a nut cake last Autumn with a brown butter frosting. To. Die. For.