Can anyone please tell me where the month of June went?  Last thing I remember was packing my husbands suitcase for his month-long trip to Germany, and boom, June is gone.  Between work and the garden, I didn’t have much time to bake this month and honestly, we had so many days above 95 degrees that baking really wasn’t much of an option.

Twice this month, I got my act together and baked; first the rhubarb upside-down brown sugar cake and then the chocolate cherry brownies, both from Baking Chez Moi.  The results; both were good and I would bake either one again.

The day I went shopping in search of fresh rhubarb, I came up empty-handed.  Luckily, I was able to find it frozen and honestly, it worked out beautifully in the end.  If you make the cake and have to use frozen rhubarb, I suggest you let it thaw completely, drain it well and use towels to pat it dry before proceeding with the recipe.  Attempting to cook it while still slightly frozen prevented the pieces from juicing.  For the round up of participants, follow this link.

There there were the brownies.  Rich, chocolatey, moist.  What’s not to love?  Only suggestion, use tart dried cherries instead of sweet ones.  Most of the dried dark cherries had little to offer in flavor and were over powered by the chocolate even though I soaked them in twice the amount of port; I subbed port for the water to add more flavor.
My mom was staying with me for the month and honestly, we ate the whole batch between us.  Granted, it took nearly a week but we did eat them all.  Surprisingly, they stayed pretty moist and I can only guess the moist fruit made that possible.  To see the round up of participants for this recipe, here is the link.

Here’s to a new month and the hope that I will not blink and miss this one too.  To see how the other bakers did this month, visit the Tuesdays with Dorie website.