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Cherry Roll
Make a dough of one pint of flour, a pinch of salt and a little lukewarm water, being careful not to make it too stiff. Slap the dough back and forth on the board, holding it in the right hand, and hitting it on the board. Do this for fifteen minutes; then put the dough in a warm covered bowl, and set in a warm place for half an hour. Stem and pit two quarts of sour cherries. Grate into them some stale bread and the peel of half a lemon. Add half a pound or more of sugar, some ground cinnamon and about four ounces of pounded sweet almonds, and mix all thoroughly. Proceed now as with the apple roll in rolling out the dough, sprinkling over the thin dough the cherry mixture. Then roll by holding up one end of the cloth. Fold the dough into a double knot, put in a buttered pan, and bake a light brown. Baste often while baking. Secure the edges of the dough so the juice will not escape, and butter the top before putting in the oven.
This is a hand-stretched strudel under another name, and it depends on a companion recipe (the apple roll) for the rolling technique. The dough is flour, salt and water only, so everything rests on how it is worked and rested.
- A pint of flourFlour was measured by volume: a pint is 2 cups, roughly 9 oz of all-purpose. Add water a little at a time to a soft, tacky dough — stiff dough will never stretch thin.
- The fifteen minutes of slappingThis is the hinge. Throwing the dough against the board develops and aligns gluten far faster than pushing it, which is what lets a plain water dough stretch to translucency without tearing. A stand mixer on medium for 8-10 minutes gets close; the half-hour warm rest afterward is not optional, as it relaxes the gluten enough to pull.
- Rolling and stretchingThe recipe refers back to a companion apple roll for the method; the standard strudel technique is to roll the dough out on a floured cloth and then work it thin with the backs of the hands until you can read print through it. The cloth is what lifts and rolls the finished log, which is what the instruction to hold up one end of the cloth describes.
- Two quarts of sour cherriesAbout 2.5-3 lb whole, giving a little over 2 lb once stemmed and pitted. Fresh sour cherries have a short season; jarred Morello cherries in light syrup, well drained, are the usual stand-in. Sweet cherries make a flat, cloying filling — increase the lemon if you use them.
- Grated stale breadDry breadcrumbs; the recipe gives no quantity. Their job is structural rather than flavorful: they absorb the juice sour cherries release so the pastry does not turn to paste. Toasting them in butter first is common strudel practice and worth doing.
- Pounded sweet almonds"Sweet" almonds simply means ordinary eating almonds, distinguished from bitter almonds, which were still commercially available in this period. Four ounces of blanched almonds ground medium-fine is what is wanted, not almond flour.
- Bake a light brownNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, 350-375F, for 40-50 minutes, until the pastry is golden and any escaping juice is bubbling and thick. Higher heat browns the thin dough before the filling cooks.
- BastingMelted butter, brushed on every 10-15 minutes. This is what produces the crisp, flaking layers; an unbasted strudel dries to cardboard.
- The double knotThe phrase is obscure; it most likely means the filled log is bent into a horseshoe or coiled to fit the pan. Pinch and tuck the ends firmly and set the seam underneath — the recipe's own 'secure the edges of the dough so the juice will not escape' — or the cherry juice will run out and weld the roll to the pan.
- YieldServes 8 to 10. Best the day it is baked, warm rather than hot.
The dish is a strudel: the paper-thin water dough, the buttered basting and the grated stale bread that soaks up the fruit juice are all standard Austro-Hungarian practice, often said to have been carried into English-language cookery by Central European immigrant cooks. Sour cherries — Morellos and their kin — were the classic filling in that tradition, since their acidity survives sugar and long baking in a way sweet cherries do not. The instruction to slap the dough on the board for a quarter of an hour is a reminder of how much of this cooking was physical labor performed without machinery.