Now that my mini summer break is over, I’ve been slowly trying to get used to working full time again. This time, I’m doing a lot of pharmacy compounding, so it’s a lot of fun to be creating things all day long – it almost feels like I’m having fun in the kitchen! Once the weekend hits, I’m itching to make actual edible things. I made ciabatta for the first time last weekend, which I am really excited about, and I finally got around to making my chocolate cherry dessert in a skillet that I’ve been craving before the cherries go out of season!
Because I’ve been all about gooey desserts lately, I went with a pudding cake. I decided to make it gluten free to keep the protein content decent with almond and buckwheat flours, and it turned out perfectly! The texture of buckwheat flour gives it a slight grainy feeling in the pudding part, but the flavor is fantastic, and you can easily sub all almond flour if you don’t want to try the buckwheat. I like using both so that it gets the right cake texture and rise.
I decreased the sugar by using half liquid stevia, and I think you could almost just leave that out – it was pretty sweet! Definitely a decadent dessert, but so worth it. I love that it has cake edges and a wonderful pudding center. The burst of fresh cherry brings it over the top; I think it’d also be great with raspberries!
If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, you can just put this into an 8×8 inch square pan; it works just as well!
And now, I’m off to have a bit of a Doctor Who marathon… After yesterday’s new episode, it reminded me of how much I missed it, so must watch some more! While I’m mentioning Doctor Who, how awesome was Peter Capaldi?! I’m really excited to see what he can do after yesterday’s episode – he had me laughing out loud quite a bit. Mad man with a box, indeed…
What is your favorite dessert to make with fresh cherries?
- 3/4 cup almond meal or flour*
- 1/4 cup buckwheat flour*
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup demerara sugar (or brown sugar)
- 1/4 tsp liquid stevia (or 1/4 cup more sugar)
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup milk (I used almond milk)
- 4 Tbsp (1/2 a stick) butter, melted
- 1 cup fresh cherries, pitted and halved
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup demerara sugar (or brown sugar)
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1 cup hot coffee (or hot water for non-coffee lovers)
- 1/4 tsp liquid stevia (or 1/4 cup more sugar)
Preheat the oven to 350ºF, and butter a 10-inch cast iron skillet or line an 8x8 inch pan with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, stir the almond meal, buckwheat flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and sugar together. Add the stevia, vanilla, egg, milk, and melted butter, stirring until smooth. Fold in the cherries.
Spread the batter into the prepared skillet or 8x8 inch pan, smoothing evenly with a spatula.
In a small bowl, stir the cocoa powder and sugar together for the pudding topping.
Sprinkle the chocolate chips overtop the cake batter, and then sprinkle the cocoa-sugar mixture evenly over the chocolate chips.
Stir the coffee and liquid stevia together (if using sugar instead of stevia, combine that extra sugar with the cocoa powder above), and pour over the cake. Do not stir!
Bake at 350ºF for 30-35 minutes, until just set. The edges will appear done, but the middle will still jiggle slightly - you want this! It creates a rich pudding inside.
Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before serving. Serve alone or with a scoop of ice cream!
*For non gluten-free version, you can use 1 cup of white whole wheat or all-purpose flour.
Adapted from Not Without Salt.