Readers of The Bitten Word cooked every recipe in the September 2013 Bon Appetit magazine. Here's their take on Buttermilk Cake with Sour Milk Jam and Gin-Poached Cherries.
Yvette and Mary: The cake (sponge and hot milk cake ties the knot) was good, but the cherries WAY too sweet, masking the flavor of the gin and juniper berry components. The sour milk jam was tasty, but also a tad too sweet.
Cait: While the cake was excellent -- moist, crumbly, and delightfully sweet and tangy from the buttermilk - everything else about this recipe was just..weird. The sour milk "jam" tasted like sweetened-to-the-point-of-a-cavity creme fraiche, and the gin-poached cherries tasted like, well, a whole lot of gin. I ate the cake with my fingers and tossed everything else.
Jill: Lovely, and homey. Very good but be sure not to bite into the juniper berries.
Val: Milk jam: I made condensed milk! (But I would use canned next time.) my creme fraiche was too buttery and overpowered this. Poached cherries: it was good to have a use for juniper, but this was not my thing. It is good to have in the repertoire though, for other fruits and liquors. Buttermilk cake: perfection! I'll use it in a fig trifle, with the leftover milk jam.
Neil: No need to rip cake into pieces unless you dropped the pan. Save time; buy a can of sweetened condensed milk instead of making your own. Impress your dinner guests: make bananas foster instead...ha!
Grace: As the title suggests, this taste of this recipe is complex and the finished product is an absolute show stopper! What the article misses is just how easy this recipe actually is to make! Many of the ingredients are household staples, but this recipes transforms them into something inspired. In particular, I was surprised by how tasty the sourmilk jam ended up being!
Blair: This dish is easy and delicious, in spite of having multiple components. The buttermilk cake is very straightforward and has a lovely subtle flavor. The cherries are also delicious and would be good on so many things but they did take a little longer to get syrupy then the recipe indicated. The sour milk jam is tricky, in my opinion. It took twice as long to reduce as the recipe indicated and never quite made it to a scant quarter cup. Tasted great though!
Get the Buttermilk Cake with Sour Milk Jam and Gin-Poached Cherries recipe at Bon Appétit
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