I saw perfect cherries at the farmer’s market, and remembered and old recipe of Martha Stewart’s, however she used a whole cherry, pit and all. What is she, high?? Lord knows I’ll crack a crown on a pit, OR my kids will probably swallow them whole. Forget that. I did a different take on them, keeping the cute idea, but making a vanilla cupcake instead – because vanilla and cherry go so well together. Plus – no pesky pits.
ingredients:
1 stick of butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1-1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup whole milk
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
24 fresh cherries, pitted, leaving some of the stems on
Line a mini muffin tin with liners, this will make about 24. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and pit your cherries. If you are dumb like me, you hand-pit these bad boys til your fingers turn red. If you are smart, you buy a cherry pitter. But if you do that you have to pull the stems and I like to leave some of the stems on cause it looks pretty cute in the end.
In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time.
In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add it to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk. Stir in the vanilla.
Fill the mini liners almost to the top. Then press a cherry into the center of each. The batter will come up and form around the cherry. Again, if you are paranoid someone’s going to eat the stem, you can just leave them off.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, depending on your oven.
These are great because they have a lot of fresh flavor and you can just pop them right in your mouth. Just…don’t eat the stem.
Kid's lunches, simple dinners and a whole lot of geeky baking.
In the world of cooking with cherries, there is a great debate….to pit or not to pit. The reasoning for leaving the pit in (according to French cookbooks) is because it imparts an almond-like flavor into the baked good.
I, however, am with you and will just add a drop or two of almond extract rather than bust a tooth.
These are genius. I love that they are pitted but not destemmed.
I made these! Except..regular sized. and with blueberries (they were cheaper). So I semi-made these. They were good.
Gotta try it with the cherries sometime. Thanks!
Had to try these – they looked so cute.
First, the cheeries…I used a large pastry tip to take out the pit and it worked like a charm. Keeping the stems on took a little work, but I did a few anyway. After a few tries and red fingers, I think it worked best by making a large “X” on the bottom of the cherry and splitting it so you can take out the seed…hence, the red fingers because you have to kind of pry the pit out. It is easier working with softer cherries.
Second, I ended up with 36 mini muffins – maybe your mini muffin pan is bigger than mine? Anyway, that was a nice surprise because I could share more!
I did add 1 tsp of almond extract and just 1 tsp of vanilla extract…love that almond flavor.
Everyone loved them!! Thanks.
awesomely yummerific!~