Fill half-roasted, foil-wrapped eggplant halves with toasted Israeli couscous that has been spiced with allspice, cinnamon, bay leaves, parsley, and feta cheese to add flavor to your side dish spread. This Middle Eastern-inspired dish from Kelly Senyei of Just a Taste has a garnish of juicy pomegranate seeds, which adds a burst of fresh fruit taste.
| Servings: | 24 |
| Yield: | 1 – 9×13 inch pan |
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup butter
- 2 eggs
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup buttermilk
- 8 ounces cherries, pitted and halved
- 2 cups white sugar
- 2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 cup beer
- ¼ cup cherry juice
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- ⅔ cup butter
- 1 egg
- 4 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
- 4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
- 3 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan. Sift flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream 2/3 cup butter and white sugar until light and fluffy. Add 2 eggs and 2 squares melted chocolate. Add flour mixture alternately with beer, buttermilk and cherry juice. Mix until smooth, then fold in cherries and chopped nuts. Pour batter into a 9×13 inch pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of cake comes out clean.
- To make frosting: in a large bowl, combine 2/3 cup butter, 1 egg, 4 squares melted chocolate, confectioners sugar and milk. Beat until smooth. Spread on top of cooled cake.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 386 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 55 g |
| Cholesterol | 51 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 9 g |
| Sodium | 295 mg |
| Sugars | 40 g |
| Fat | 18 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Excellent cake recipe! Very moist. I used water instead of cherry juice and I cup of chopped cherries for the batter. The cherries mixed in nicely without settling at the bottom. The cake was superb!
My cherries and walnuts sank to the bottom of the cake. This didn’t ruin the cake, it still cooked thru properly, but I even just laid the cherries on top of the batter right before putting it in the oven to try and prevent this. Another way to prevent this is to coat your fruit/nuts with flour lightly before mixing them in, BUT in some cakes this results in a dry spot around your goodies (that wouldn’t be a problem with fresh or frozen fruit but it might have been a problem on these nuts). The cake baked up pretty sturdy but the batter was not sturdy enough to hold these add-ins up. I used a standard ganache in place of the frosting here as raw eggs skeeve me right out. (2c heavy cream, heated & poured over 1.25 lbs chopped bittersweet chocolate, cover 5 mins, then stir to smoothness. Add vanilla or whatever. That recipe is also on this site.) My daughter & hubby thought it was amazing, I give it 4 stars bc of the sinking and probably also bc I don’t love chocolate or cherries as much as normal people. Might revise this to 5 stars if the remaining 18 servings (I sectioned it into 20 pieces, it’s a very DEEP cake) are raved about at hubby’s work. Thanks for sharing!
This was just ok. It nearly overflowed the pan and the flavors of cake and beer, delish as they both are, just don’t go together for me. The beer did make it very light and fluffy, though.
Loved it! Next time I’d double the amount of cherries though .
A surprisingly mature chocolate cake. It was very popular when I served it to guests. 🙂 I did tweak the recipe a little bit. I replaced cherries with a frozen assortment of berries, and also added dark chocolate chunks into the cake. I found the 2 squares of chocolate too little for my taste, and added another two. I also used three cups of confectioner’s sugar instead of four, and found the frosting perfect. All in all, a great recipe. Would definitely use again–and experiment with various other kinds of beers.
I used milk chocolate, regular milk, and black cherries, and omitted the walnuts (Because that’s what I had on hand). I also made them into cupcakes. The tops were a little over-done even at 45 minutes, so I would suggest checking them at 30-40 minutes. The flavors of the beer and cherry juice mixed very well, and the rest of the cake was moist and delicious!
I used Sam Adams-Cherry Wheat beer since the recipe called for cherries, and it came out deliciously moist! I also used a cream cheese icing instead of the icing pvodied that worked wonderfully.
Totally delicious and not too sweet! What kind of beer you use makes a difference here (guiness is prob the best choice) – I used a belgian-style white beer because it was what i had on hand, and it ended up with a lingering alcohol taste (not in a good way). So instead of fighting it, I went with it! Just before icing, I brushed on about 1/4c of SoCo and a bit of homemade apricot liqueur. It was DELICIOUS! I’m sure any liquer would work… Grand Marnier, perhaps? Substituted a Cream cheese icing also – Cream together 1 pkg Neufchatel or Cream Cheese & 1/2 stick butter, then mix in 1 to 1.5 cups confectioner’s sugar (depending on your sweet tooth) and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. This was a big birthday hit 🙂
This is a WINNER! It is absolutely delicious! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe.
FANTASTIC Its a great “grown up” chokolate cake. Not to sweet. I could not get any cherrys so I bought jared cherrys, I dont think it made it any worse ! Will make again.!
The ingredients alone seem a bit suspect… even as you are making the batter!! How they marry to compliment one another in the end result is absolutely wonderful!!! Not too sweet, very moist and great with or without the frosting. I didn’t have cherry juice so I used raspberry syrup mixed with water and eleminated the actual cherries altogether….. I’d doubled the recipe and everyone truly enjoyed it. Three have asked for the recipe and I’ve been asked to bake another for a birthday just three days after I’d baked the first one!!
made this for some friends and they said they liked, especially after they found out there was beer in it.
a real moist and delicious cake