Concord Grapes + A Simple Jam-stuffed Sour Cream Pound Cake

Summer’s sendoff, Fall’s prelude, and the successful results of my first-time grape foraging (is it considered foraging if I only had to walk about 50 feet behind my house?).

This recipe involved many firsts for me actually—including my first attempt at canning. Canning is an art I’ve long admired as many years have passed by in which I’ve only watched from the kitchen table, or tasted from a care package, the fruits of my Aunts’ preservation prowess. From apple butter to bread and butter pickles, mustard, and tomato sauce, they’ve mastered the methods of putting up an entire Summer’s worth of harvests for us all to enjoy. I can’t forget to mention Linda’s raspberry jam, made from her legendary grove of Sharpless family bushes. Some families pass down photos, china, or jewelry—the Sharpless’ on the other hand prefer to pass down plants.

Last Spring Betty walked me through the process of water-bath canning for the first time via grape jelly in addition to her pink applesauce (which takes on a blush-hue if you leave on the skin!). And while the scent of boiling concord juice and masses of sugar was certainly intoxicating, I myself prefer a jam over jelly and one that happens to taste more like fruit than snow cone syrup. So for my own batch, I decided to use a recipe that enlists the help of low sugar pectin, which allows for the use of a significantly lower level of sugar for the jam to set. Some low or no sugar pectins include dextrose (a highly potent sweetener ) to allow the home canner to reduce the total sugar necessary. However, my preferred brand is Pomona’s, which uses calcium to bind together the pectin molecules (traditional methoxyl pectin jams are bound together by sugar and acid).

The recipe is actually one of theirs and can be adjusted for however much fruit you're able to get a hold of (I barely made it to 4 cups of pulp and skins post-harvesting once the peeling and mashing were all said and done). I highly recommend finding your Mom’s old foley mill for this one— you’ll be glad you have it when it comes time to sieve out all the pesky seeds in the concords.

If you can, definitely try to make some Concord Grape Jam this season. If you can’t get your hands on any and aren’t lucky enough to find a rouge vine running through your suburban neighborhood’s walking trails, go for your favorite summer jam. Plum would be lovely in this cake, or apricot. A marmalade would work beautifully rippled through it too. Oh, and I can’t imagine how wonderful a wild blueberry may be tucked inside the batter.

This cake is a blank canvas, and if you're a purist and prefer to make the cake sans jam swirls, it will still be equally as enjoyable. Next, I’m going to try adding an olive oil crumble on top to make a chichi coffee cake situation. Let your mind (and whatever fruits are hanging out in the back of your fridge or in the bottom of your freezer) guide you to your very own state of simple, carefree, cake bliss.

Jam-Stuffed Sour Cream and Olive Oil Pound Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sour cream

• 1/3 cup olive oil (my favorite is Kyoord)

• 1 cup of sugar

• 2 large eggs

• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1/2 cup of your favorite jam

• optional spices:

  • cinnamon, ginger, white pepper, cardamom— any of your favorites that pair best with your jam! Or none!

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350º F. Butter/ line either a standard loaf, 8” round springform, or bundt pan.

2. In your mixing bowl, whisk together the sour cream, olive oil, and sugar. Once thoroughly mixed, add the eggs one at a time.

3. With a flour sifter or fine-mesh sieve, sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt directly over the wet ingredients. Using a spatula fold in the dry ingredients until just combined.

4. Pour 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan then dollop tablespoons of jam over the top of the batter. Swirl slightly with a toothpick, then pour the remaining batter evenly over top.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, until the sides of the cake begin to pull away from the sides of the pan, the top is golden, and a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.

the only Chocolate Cake you'll ever need

These are unprecedented times. The first aisle of the grocery to fall victim to the virus was the paper goods, ransacked by the panic-shoppers. The FORO, or the fear of running out is now crossing over into baking supplies, where you're lucky to even find a sad few bags of overpriced banana flour (what do you even do with this?). Regardless, we're all coping through the kitchen, and as the peer pressure mounts, I’ve found myself tangled in a mess of wasted flour, stale water, and knee-deep in failed sourdough starters. I sneer at the perfectly baked loaves of fermented goodness everyone and their mother (does that count as a sourdough joke?) are sharing all over socials. For some reason, I just can’t get this thing to work. So for now, I’ll cut my losses and with the little AP I have left I’ll return to tried-and-true recipes that will never let me down.

Besides, what we really need during these toilful times are sweet, simple, and satisfying recipes that promise a dopamine-releasing bake- it’s truly the little wins that will keep us going right now, guys. So given the little resources we have, let’s make the best of this and embrace cake. Chocolate cake to be exact. Go on, pick yourself up again, put on your apron, and head to the cupboard. Pull out the flour reserves (I promise your last 1 1/4 cups of all-purpose won’t go to waste), and dig through the deep dark voids of the corner cabinet and pull out that archaic canister of Hershey’s cocoa you forgot you had (there’s a solid 50% chance it’s hiding back there). Even better? You’ll only be using 1 of your precious eggs since if you're anything like me you're most likely down to the last 4, and have great hopes of naturally dying a couple for Easter on Sunday. A 1/2 a cup of sugar (that dated bag of Domino has probably been hanging out with Mr. Hershey’s the past few years), a splash of vinegar, some oil, milk, baking powder, soda, and salt complete the team roster. But you’ll be the real MVP, as each evening for the next 8 days of quarantine (or 4 if you love a slice with your morning coffee) you’ll relish in the deliciousness that is this chocolate cake, the only one you’ll ever need.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups All-Purpose flour

• 1/3 cup cocoa powder

• 1/2 cup of suagr

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon, if you’ve got it

• 1 egg

• 1/4 cup oil (olive, coconut, canola, melted butter perhaps)

• 2 tbsp maple syrup

• 1 tsp vinegar (white or ACV- we both know those daily wellness shots that never stuck left you with a big ole’ bottle of Braggs)

• 1 cup of milk (nut, cow, oat, seed, water…)

• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and oil an 8x8 inch pan or small bundt.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, powder, salt, cinnamon, and cocoa till combined and there are no more dry lumps.

3. In a medium bowl, crack the egg and whisk it till it’s nice and frothy. Then add the vinegar, milk, vanilla, and maple syrup. Mix till emulsified and smooth.

4. pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry, and stir with a spatula till smooth and no pockets of flour remain.

5. Pour the batter into the pan, and bake 30-40 minutes till the edges begin to pull away from the pan and the cake passes the toothpick test with maybe some minor crumbs.
   

I topped mine with my grandma’s favorite seven-minute frosting, inspired by the bakers at this cafe, which I randomly stumbled upon during a deep Instagram stalk. Some festive dried flowers also made an appearance atop (roses, calendula, hibiscus- shoutout to amazon and Mom’s bulk section).