February 21: Cherry Cake

The story you are about to read is true.  The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Keith and I have been on a 1960s TV binge of late.  For Christmas, I gave him the complete collection of Batman television episodes on Blu-Ray.  I love watching Dragnet episodes on Netflix.  During one Dragnet episode, titled Bunco - $9000, from the fourth season, Sergeant Friday and Officer Gannon are conducting witness interviews at a church mission.  They are offered a slice of cherry cake; the camera pans to the refreshment table.  Friday (who never eats anything) declines the offer for both himself and Gannon (who eats in almost every episode).  Later on, after solving the case, Gannon suggests they return to the mission and says to Friday "You know we've worked together a long time, but I don't expect you to know everything about me."  Friday queries "What do you mean by that?"  Gannon replies "I'm just crazy about cherry cake."

Keith agreed that a cherry cake seems like something he'd be crazy about, too.  And what better time of year for baking cherry cake than the week of George Washington's birthday?  

In the spirit of preserving period accuracy, I chose a Maraschino Cherry Cake recipe from the 1950 edition of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book.  The recipe specifies using 16 cherries, cut into eighths and juice from the jar.  The menu section of the book even includes a party menu for Washington's birthday including this cake.  At the supermarket, I was tempted to buy some superb-looking, "natural" maraschino cherries in a jar with a foodie-attractant-quality label.  No anachronisms here;  I picked the classic, "unnatural" cherries.  The more retro and artificially colored, the better.  The cherries in the Dragnet cake probably even contained that carcinogenic red dye #2 that scared Mars into removing red M&Ms from the market.

The cake turned out in two tall and light layers.  The frosting recipe called for replacing the water in a typical seven-minute frosting with cherry juice.  In an effort to make my cake more-closely resemble the Dragnet cake, I added chopped cherries to the frosting as a final step.  

The family has declared this cake a winner!  Case closed.

Next Saturday: Mace Cake