Last week, my supervisor at work, a man with an incredible green thumb, asked if I might have some use for sour cherries. I often bake with dried sour cherries, but have never been able to get fresh ones. I happily accepted his offer and requested a pound. The next day when I arrived at the office, I was pleased to see a tub of sour cherries on my office chair, and positively delighted to see that they had already been pitted! (There are only a few kitchen gadgets that I'm still lacking, but a cherry pitter is one of them.) I decided to make Chocolate Cherry Cake Squares, a recipe I tried once before five years ago, when I opened up the July 2003 issue of Gourmet and saw the beautiful photo accompanying the recipe. Back then, I used Bing cherries because I couldn't get sour ones.This time around, I baked the cake on a Saturday morning and served it on Monday morning, to give the chocolate and cherry flavors a bit more time to develop and meld. Despite the extra time after baking, and the fact that the batter contains both cherries and cherry juice, the cherry flavor was not that pronounced. Also, the cake did not cut cleanly and was a bit messy to serve. Although it was very chocolatey and pretty moist, I don't think I would make it again.
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