Russian Cherry Cake and Kompot Recipes to Use Up Summer’s Bounty

Editor’s note: This summer, our cook-in-residence Sasha Shor, is sharing a collection of picnic-ready recipes her family brought with them to Nashville when they left the USSR in 1978. To hear more of Sasha’s story and try her family recipes for lamb kebabs, chopped salads, and pickled watermelon, check last week’s story: “The Russian Picnic Tradition a Family Smuggled Out of the USSR.”

“In Russia, summer means cherries,” Sasha Shor wrote to us. As the temperature rose, the ruby orbs would arrive in the markets and when she was little her family would forage for them by her grandparents’ dacha in the Carpathian Mountains. The season, like the summer in the USSR, was short but bountiful. Her mother and grandmother would use black and sour cherries in every recipe they could to get the most out of that season, both in the USSR and later in Nashville.

“In Russia, summer means cherries.”

Mounds of cherries were folded into a simple and versatile cake batter that taste a touch like a muffin. Handfuls were tucked with sour cream into dumplings called vareniki or cooked down with sugar to make preserves to be enjoyed during the rest of the year. Other times, the cherries were eaten plain. “I remember sitting in [my grandmother’s] kitchen with the colander in my lap and the water draining from the cherries onto my lap while I devoured them all,” Sasha adds. A staple recipe each summer was kompot, a light cherry punch, that would hang out in a pitcher in the fridge — ready to be pulled out and poured for a refreshing glass.

While the drink can be made with nearly any summer fruit that a cook has too much of like plums or berries, cherry has always been Sasha’s favorite. The recipe makes a large quantity, perfect for a party or keep it on hand for your family for up to a week in the fridge — serve it with a picnic or simply a slice of the cherry cake.