Twitter, Pitters and Friends…..Oh My!

You have to just love a medium that brings the world to your couch. And I am not talking about television. I am talking about a few clicks of a keyboard that allows you to converse with people from around the world or around the block. Sometimes, you really just don’t know who you're chatting with….and if truth be told, it doesn't matter

Fresh, sweet cherries!!

If you are promoting anything at all, from blogs to soaps, from spices to real estate, Twitter is the grand internet flea market to do it on. Each @ address is a different stand selling a brand or an idea, and it is actually quite fun. I have “chatted” with people who’ve inspired me, people who've made me laugh, people who've made me cry, and even those who have angered me at times. Twitter conversations are great at nurturing the thought process.


I even get to read tweets from people like Cher who loves to talk to her fans from her bed at 4:00 am. Or watch Bette Midler post a picture of herself she had taken in Central Park with her iPhone seconds earlier. I “chat” with my sister and niece almost every night I have become “friends” with people I have nothing in common with but find everything to talk about. And here is the important part, if you post a link to something you've written, or made, or a product your're selling, - that the people who follow you like - they will retweet it to their followers….and so on….and so on. With any luck (and there seems to be plenty) people will click on your site and “page view” counts continue to climb!

Pop in anytime of the day, and you will be amazed at the bevy of activity. Recipes, jewelry, inspirational quotes, well-written blogs, art, home designers, breaking news, stationary, more recipes, etc., etc., Tidbits of information, spin around on an a screened in carousel that can be stopped with a tap of a key stroke.

An example; a few days ago, we were going to a party and I wanted to bring a dessert. Normally when looking for a recipe, I’d go to FoodNetwork.com or some similar site to see what the professionals have to offer. But it was a Saturday and I knew that Twitter would be abuzz with weekend activities and recipes so I went there first. Now, there are tons of food bloggers on Twitter, and with a name like Kitchen Clatter, it is often assumed that I am one of them, but I’m not.

Ready for oven...

Anyway, I was only browsing a few minutes when I noticed a cherry pound cake recipe from my “friend” @GimletStyle  (who is also not a food blogger – see, you never know what you’ll find!). @GimletStyle is a wonderful writer, photographer, blogger and slightly off the wall great lady who just happened to have an amazing cake recipe, so she posted it. Now, I am not really sure when her original post went up, because when I checked again later in the morning, @RubyBeets had already made the cake and posted a picture. It looked great! This was getting interesting. 


By now, @ShelleyCHolmes was chiming in that she was getting ready to make it, and @Wisteriahomes – which is my RLS (which in twitter world stands for “real life sister” not “real loser” as I feared when she first introduced me to her tweet crowed), was telling me to make it and to save a her a slice! It was like a feeding frenzy. Sharks were circling this new recipe, creating almost as much twitter excitement as 50 Shades of Grey! (Which I have not read yet but plan to.....apparently when my husband is available, as it's been suggested). 

Can pit 8 cherries (or olives) at once!

Anyway, as I was getting ready to click on @GimletSyle’s web site for the full recipe, I saw her post “you can’t make this cake without a pitter” Okay, now the brakes were on…a pitter? Then @RubyBeets replied “an absolute must” or something similar. At first I thought, “I’ll buy ingredients, but I am not buying a tool”, (if you read my blog on my obsession with kitchen gadgets, you'll understand this because I am on a self-imposed kitchen tool probation), and that thought lasted right up to the point where I was weighing the fresh cherries on the scale at the market. 


Two cups of chopped cherries is a lot of cherries to pit without some help! And besides, this looked like the type of cake I just might make more than once. And, as my RLS Betty @WisteriaHomes tweeted, “we could use a pitter for olives when we make the olive salad” (a Thanksgiving stable at our house), and it would be neater than smashing them with a can - our current method. So I bought a cherry pitter....and not the kind that does one cherry at a time. Oh no, I bought one that can do up to eight cherries/olives with one slam of the lid! (If I was going to break probation, I was going all the way!) Plus I wanted to create pitter envy on Twitter. 


So, below is the recipe that caused such a stir. And, I can tell you this, I brought it to the party last weekend where there were many, many desserts, and it was the first to go! The dark black cherries poking through the cake enticed everyone. I did, however, make a few slight changes. In place of low-fat cottage cheese I used ricotta cheese which I consider Italian cottage cheese. And, I used salted butter because I never buy unsalted butter. So easy and so good, you have to try it! And please let me know how it goes!  

Cherry Pound Cake
Equipment

stand mixer with paddle attachment (or hand mixer and large bowl)
12-cup Bundt pan, or tube pan
Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter
3 cups (525 g) granulated sugar
4 eggs
3 cups (339 g) flour
1 tbs vanilla extract
1 cup of low-fat cottage cheese
2 cups of cherries, pitted and cut into small pieces Powdered sugar for sprinkling, optional but recommended!
Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 325° F/165° C.
2. Cut butter into chunks and cream. Gradually add sugar. Add eggs one at a time then vanilla.
3. Blend well and add the flour.
4. Stir in the cottage cheese, start on low and then high to break up the curds.
5. Carefully fold in the cherries, mix slowly and thoroughly
5. Pour into prepared pan and place in the preheated oven. Bake for 90 minutes.
6. Allow to cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
7. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve. Also good with a scoop of ice cream on the side.

Viola!!!!!