slices of bread soaked in a glistening ruby syrup of stewed sour cherries until soft and jewelled, crowned with thick clotted kaymak, the sour-cherry sweet of the cherry's Anatolian homeland
Origin: Turkey
From the journey of Cherry.
Turkey is the cherry's birthplace and the largest grower of cherries on earth, of the sweet kiraz eaten fresh and the sour vişne beloved in the kitchen, and vişneli ekmek tatlısı is the most cherished of its cherry sweets. It belongs to the great Turkish family of bread puddings, the ekmek tatlısı, in which slices of bread or rusk are soaked in syrup until they drink it up and turn soft, glossy, and translucent. Here the syrup is made from sour cherries, simmered with sugar into a deep ruby liquor, and the soaked bread takes on both the colour and the sharp-sweet flavour of the fruit. It is finished, as the best Turkish puddings are, with a generous spoonful of kaymak, the thick, almost clotted Turkish cream, whose richness balances the bright acidity of the cherries. Served cold, glistening and crowned with whole cherries, it is a sweet of summer and of the cherry harvest, eaten in the very land from which the cherry, and its name, first came.
Kaymak, the thick Turkish clotted cream, is the traditional crown; English clotted cream or a thick mascarpone are good substitutes. A rusk or a dry sponge can replace the bread. Some cooks add a cinnamon stick to the syrup. The same method, with the sweet kiraz, is far less successful; the dish depends on the sharpness of the sour vişne.
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