Cherries and Chocolate…and Digi-Scrapping

So I made this amazing chocolate cherry pound cake to share with you today. Then I sent it off to the office with the hubs. Without checking the photos I took last night. This photo doesn’t do it justice, but you’ll get the idea. It turned out to be a dense, moist, rich, dark chocolate bundt cake that really needed no frosting, so I just dusted powdered sugar on it. If you felt like it, a chocolate ganache glaze would be excellent, I’m sure.

Chocolate Cherry Pound Cake

1 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 Tbsp instant espresso powder

3/4 lb (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

3 cups sugar

1 Tbsp cherry juice concentrate

5 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup dried cherries, chopped

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan (this is a really important step!).

Whisk together dry ingredients. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, beating well after each addition, then add the cherry concentrate. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.

When well-blended, fold in chopped dried cherries. Pour mixture into the prepared pan and bake for an hour and twenty minutes, until wooden skewer comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 20 minutes before turning out onto cake plate.

Dust with powdered sugar before serving. If you have fresh cherries, they make a pretty garnish alongside on each plate. I don’t have fresh cherries here in the upper Midwest this time of year, so a maraschino cherry had to stand in for the photo.

If you’re looking for cherry concentrate, I love the one King Arthur Flour sells. I was thrilled to discover in our local grocery store,with the large selection of cherry products. Really. Although it seems a little pricey, one bottle goes a long way. I use it for sodas, cakes, frostings, salad dressings…every chance I get! Find it here.

I’ve also been scrapbooking a bit this week. Here’s a scrapbook page of our family on a winter walk. I’m not sure of the correlation to chocolate pound cake, it’s just a reminder to scrap the moments, not just the events…to myself!

I’ve just thought of yet another benefit of digital scrapbooking…you can eat chocolate cake without fear of getting it on your pages. Keyboards can always be cleaned, after all.

Enjoy your weekend…we’re getting snow today. so perhaps we can go sledding. And by that, I mean the kids can sled while I watch from inside by the fire while reading. Or surfing Pinterest.

One last note...I added a search box up on the right sidebar, so you can "Search the Chaos" for certain recipes, crafts, etc. Sorry I didn't do that sooner!