On the note of cakes, I baked the third plum torte today and I declare it is the best one yet! I lured my co-workers into the kitchen by wafting a cinnamon/plummy breeze in their direction. It worked.
Now back to the topic at hand, brown butter cherry bars. There is quite possibly nothing simpler to make, yet people will think you toiled day and night over the stove once they taste these morsels of goodness.
The genius of this recipe is that it combines a tart and a cake, two of my (now) favorite things. The tart part comes in the form of a crunchy sweet crust that lines the bottom of the pan. Once that is par-baked you pile in the fruit and pour over it a speckled brown butter batter. Throw it back in the oven, wait what seems like a tremendously long time as you are tortured by the delicious scent cast off, and finally after much pacing and willing them to cool, chopping off the corner (the best part; guard them with your life) and devouring it.
As with the plum torte, I can't seem to get enough of these bars. I first baked them a couple months ago after spying the recipe on SmittenKitchen.com. I used a sweet cherry from the greenmarket, though it was a type other than Bing and I'm not sure what it was. This was the best batch of bars made with cherry (one batch made with blackberry, I'll get to that in a minute). The cherries were sweet but very firm and somewhat acidic which held up nicely against the sweet batter.
The second batch I made for my family while in Colorado. I used western slope Bing cherries for this batch and though it didn't keep me from eating just as many of them, they were not quite as good as the ones made with mystery east coast cherries. The Bings were a little unremarkable after being baked, lacking the tartness or acidity of their predecessors.
The third batch I baked last night, thus recieving the stink-eye from my roommate for turning on the oven when it was already 90 degrees outside, and possibly hotter inside. This time I used about a pint of blackberries that had been hanging out in the fridge, just a little too tart for eating on cereal or in yogurt. The stink-eye was worth it. Though quite different from their cherry counterparts they are quite delicious and taste like a summer day cloaked in a bit of cake.
The key to these bars it to par-bake your crust until it is nice and golden so it provides the desired contrast between crust and cake. Don't worry about it becoming too dark while baking the rest of the ingredients, it will be just fine.
Brown Butter Cherry Bars
Crust:
7 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/3 c sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 c plus 1 Tbsp all purpose flour
pinch of salt
Filling:
1/2 c sugar
2 large eggs
pinch of salt
1/4 all purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 stick unsalted butter
8-10 ounces of pitted cherries or other fruit
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Line an 8x8 inch pan with two strips of parchment running opposite directions so that you have lined the bottom as well as the sides of the pan. Leave an inch or so poking up above the pan on all sides so you have "ears" to pull the bars out of the pan when cool.
Melt the 7 Tbsp butter in a small pan and pour into a medium bowl. Add the rest of the crust ingredients and smash it around with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until combined. Crumble into your prepared pan and press the crumbs to form a solid crust. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until golden all over.
In the same pot place 1 stick of butter. Cook over medium low heat. You will hear the butter begin to crackle and make hissing noises, this is normal. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, scraping the bottom of the pan, until it foams and you see dark brown specks floating around. This is brown butter. Turn the heat off and let the butter cool as you mix the rest of your ingredients.
In the same bowl you made your crust in, whisk the sugar, eggs, and salt. Add the flour and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Gradually whisk in the brown butter, scraping all the tasty bits off the bottom of the pan and into the bowl.
Arrange pitted cherries, or other fruit of choice evenly on top of the crust. Pour batter over the fruit and place back in the oven for 40 minutes or so. When it is done a tester may not come out clean because of the juice in the fruit, so the best way to check is look for an even golden color across the surface of the cake; you can also press on a patch of cake with your finger to see if it springs back. If it does, chances are it's done.
Cool the bars completely in the pan. Gently lift out by the parchment "ears". I find they are easier to cut neatly after they have chilled in the fridge, though they taste best at room temperature. If you are not going to consume them all within a day I recommend refrigerating them so you don't have to sacrifice them to the trash can as I sadly did with the meager remnants of my first batch.
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