Metamorphosism

Recipe for my wife's world-famous Kirschkuchen

I remember what it was I'd wanted to post yesterday. An ethnologist told me that during a trip to Papua New Guinea he'd asked a tribesman the name of his mother-in-law. The shocked man warned him in a whisper never to ask anyone the name of his mother-in-law. "You could be killed!" he said. Mothers-in-law are taboo there, being in charge of black magic as they are, and are never referred to by name.

How primitive.

On a completely unrelated note, during a recent trip to a wine-growing region here, we saw a stand selling things to eat, including pastries, and long strips of what looked like fried dough, about two inches wide and a foot-and-a-half long and sort of concave. Or convex, depending on which side you're examining them from, very thin dough. We asked what they were. "Mother-in-law tongues," we were told. Made by rolling some sort of dough out very thin - it looked like pastry dough - and frying it on a griddle.

How quaint.

Anyway. Brian asked for my wife's Kirschkuchen recipe.

My Wife's Now-World-famous Kirschkuchen

Disclaimer
Being intellectuals, you can do the conversions yourselves, as necessary
Also, THIS WORKS WITH PITTED PIE CHERRIES, not regular cherries.

Ingredients:

• 250 g real butter not margarine
  
• 250 g sugar
  
• 4 eggs
  
• 400 g all-purpose flour
  
• 16 g baking powder, my wife thinks

Instructions

• Butter and eggs must be at room temperature
  
• Mix butter and sugar with mixer
  
• Don't forget to preheat oven to 190 degrees C.
  
• One at a time, add eggs to mixture, mixing with mixer, then add next egg, mix, etc.
  
• Mix flour and baking powder, then stir into butter-egg-sugar mixture
  
• You need a form, or baking pan or something, shallow and large enough for the Kuchen. We use the oven tray, greased (buttered) and thinly floured. Maybe a non-stick item would also work, but no promises.
  
• Spread dough on pan, put cherries on top (should be enough cherries to cover it). Sprinkle this with cinnamon and powdered sugar.
  
• Bake for one hour at 190 degrees C, or until it looks like a Kirschkuchen; golden brown etc. You can do the stick-something-in-and-if-no-dough-sticks-to-it-it's-done test. My wife uses a knitting needle, my mother used a knife but she never made Kirschkuchen.
  
• Consume.