A dark cake made from ground bird-cherry flour — Siberia's wild forest fruit milled into cocoa-brown almond-scented powder.
Cheryomukha (черёмуха, bird cherry / Prunus padus) is a wild cherry that grows across Siberia. Its small black fruits are dried whole and ground — pits and all — into a flour with the texture of cocoa and a flavor between almond, marzipan, and tart cherry. The Buryat and Russian Siberian kitchens use this flour in cakes, pelmeni-fillings, and breakfast porridges. The cake form is the most famous outside the region.
A Siberian cake made with bird-cherry flour — the whole dried fruits (flesh and pits) milled together — the seeds taste of bitter almond, the filling is dark purple-black. Distinct, slightly medicinal Siberian dessert.
Cheryomukha (Prunus padus) seeds contain amygdalin, which breaks down into benzaldehyde during baking — the same compound that gives bitter almond extract its flavor. The Siberian climate ripens the cherries faster than European varieties.
Variations
Siberian cheryomukha tart uses bird cherry; Russian Far East version uses Aronia berry; modern Russian version uses morello cherry — three dark-fruit pastries.
On the Palate
Where Cheryomukha Tart sits in the Russian flavor cloud
Steep the bird-cherry flour in hot milk for a full 30 minutes before mixing — the coarse ground flour needs time to swell and soften, or the finished cake turns gritty and sandy in the mouth.
Ingredients
How it's made
6 steps · 1 hour 30 min
- 17 min
Mix 200g bird-cherry flour with 250ml hot milk; let steep 30 minutes — the flour swells and softens.
Watch outAfter steeping, the milk-flour mixture should look thick and paste-like with no dry powder left — that means it has softened enough.
- 27 min
Whisk 3 eggs with 200g sugar until pale; beat in 100g softened butter.
- 37 min
Fold the steeped bird-cherry mixture into the eggs. Sift in 200g wheat flour and 1 tsp baking soda; mix just until combined.
- 456 min
Pour batter into a buttered 24cm springform pan. Bake at 180°C for 35-40 minutes; toothpick should come out with moist crumbs.
Watch outTest with a toothpick — it should come out with a few moist crumbs, not wet batter; this cake stays deliberately damp.
- 59 min
Cool completely. Slice horizontally and fill with 250g sour cream whipped with 80g sugar.
Watch outWhip the sour cream with sugar just until it holds soft peaks — over-whipping it near butter makes the filling grainy.
- 64 min
Dust the surface with bird-cherry flour to serve — the top looks like dark forest soil.
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