cake #1: cherry-cornmeal upside-down cake

And so we begin; Sherie may have been the first to bake, but I have the fun of being the first to post!

Preliminary thoughts about this project: this is NOT a cake baking contest. There is no keeping score between Sherie and I about whose cake was prettier, tastier, more "successful". She and I have yet to figure out any scoring system for rating the cakes...perhaps we'll be able to report on such a thing at a later date. And, as for our timeline...Sherie first baked this cake a few weeks ago, but as this is the first post, I'm going to declare that our year-long countdown begins...NOW! Between now and Labor Day of next year (good to start on a holiday, actually!), we will bake all 30 cakes.

And on to the cake! First up, chosen by Sherie, was the cherry-cornmeal upside-down cake.

I baked this cake as my submission for the dessert contest at my local block party. I didn't win, but that doesn't mean that the cake wasn't really delicious.

My first and primary recommendation for this cake is that you HAVE to use fresh cherries. Alas, all the cherries were gone from my local farmers' markets and grocery stores at the time of baking. Thus, I had to substitute Trader Joe's frozen dark sweet cherries. This substitution created two potential problems:

1. A very watery cherry sauce even though I strained my cherries before adding them.
2. Bland and not so sweet cherries.

I was sure that all this liquid would be a problem in the finished cake. In fact, you can see that it wasn't contained by the batter.
Surprisingly, however, the extra liquid wasn't a problem in the least. In fact, the cake was extremely moist.

The most difficult part of this recipe was flipping the cake out of the pan onto a plate. Have you tried to gracefully flip a cast iron skillet? The handle of the skillet got in the way of placing a plate flush on the pan. In retrospect, it would have been a better idea to flip onto a piece of parchment on a cookie sheet or larger pan. I could have then used the parchment to help me move it onto a plate. Instead, my flip was off center and then I had to scoot the cake into the center of the plate, leaving a smear on the plate.

And the cake? As previously mentioned, super moist. It tasted like the best yellow cake you ever had with an extra bit of crunch from the cornmeal. The cherries, however? Not so sweet. I needed extra sugar to take the frozen cherries to the sweetness of fresh cherries.

And? Kind of ugly? I mean look at it:
My cherries were very dark purple - almost black. In the dusk of our street party, some of the tasters seemed a bit wary of the cake until it was cut into slices allowing them to see the cake better. Needless to say, I lost the dessert contest to some very rich, very thick brownies.

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My two trusty kitchen helpers: my Kitchen Aid mixer and five year old.