Cheryomukha Torte

When you cut into the dark cake, an aroma reminiscent of almonds rises from it. Cheryomukha torte is a cake made with dried, ground bird cherry fruit in its batter. Flour from this fruit, which is well loved in Siberia, gives flavor to every layer.

Turning fruit into flour for the cake

Cheryomukha is the Russian word for bird cherry. Some Russian food manufacturers sell an edible flour made by grinding the dried fruit of the European bird cherry (Prunus padus). Flour made from dried, ground fruit differs from white wheat flour in both appearance and aroma. When it is used in cakes, one approach is to combine it with wheat flour before baking, which adds the fruit’s aroma to the cake.

In one home recipe, sugar and eggs are mixed into yogurt or kefir, then cheryomukha flour, wheat flour, and a leavening agent are added before baking. The cooled cake is cut, filled with sour cream mixed with sugar, and left to rest in the refrigerator. The cake, fragrant from the flour, is layered with the cream and its dairy tang, which also creates a contrast between the dark and white layers.

A 2005 Russian magazine also includes a recipe in which the fruit flour is simmered with milk and cooled, then eggs, sugar, wheat flour, and other ingredients are added before baking. The baked cake is sliced horizontally and filled with smetana sweetened with sugar. How the batter is prepared also differs depending on whether the flour is mixed in as is or first heated with milk.

Pairing fruit and dairy

Besides cakes, flour from the dried fruit has also been used in pie fillings and drinks. The fresh fruit is dried for storage, and it is also used as flour in sweets.

Oral accounts recorded from long-time residents of the Baikal region include stories of gathering cheryomukha, drying it, and taking it to a mill to be ground into flour. One woman in Krasnoyarsk Krai said that she went to an old mill to have it ground as recently as 1996. There are also accounts of using it in winter pies; the fruit flour was rooted in local kitchens, not only in cakes.

The fruit flour gives the batter a deep color and aroma. In tests of sponge cake batter in which part of the wheat flour was replaced, the color and aroma grew stronger as more fruit flour was added, and in the formulation in which 20% of the wheat flour was replaced with fruit flour, bitterness and a grainy texture were also noticeable.

Smetannik, which also makes use of the tang of dairy, includes layered cakes as well, but the cheryomukha torte is distinguished by the aroma of its fruit. Methods vary from household to household, and the impression also changes depending on the choice of tangy dairy product and the thickness of the cake layers.

Glossary