Recipe 32: Cherry Cake

Cherry cake at Christmas time in Oz! What could remind one of the old country more, with overtones of Chekov and relaxing afternoons, than a light and cheerful cherry cake? A fresh sponge with little bursts of cherry-popping flavour is just the thing for an airy afternoon cake with a decent cup of tea or, even for a spot of dessert with a little cream drizzled over the top. Sounds pretty good, huh? Well, at least I think so.

Now before I begin telling you about this, I’m sure I can guess the question on your lips:

“But how do you stop all the cherries from sinking to the bottom of the cake?”

Well, having consulted a few recipes it seems that there are two ways to do this:

1. Once you’ve quartered the cherries, lightly coat them in a couple of tablespoons of self-raising flour. This will give them a little more ‘fixidity’ (?), and prevent them from sinking down as much.

2. Delia suggests only putting 2/3 of the cherries in during the folding stage and then adding the final third once the mixture’s in the tin. Pop the cherries on top of the mix and then push them just under the top of the mixture with a teaspoon.

I did both and got on fairly well with it. So, read on for your recipe for a delicious cherry cake.

Ingredients

200g cherries	175g self-raising flour
175g butter (room temperature)	Approx. 75 g almonds to decorate (and/or used crushed ones in the mix itself)
175g caster sugar	Vanilla or almond extract
3 large eggs

Begin with the cherries. If you’re not using fresh ones and they’re covered in syrup, pat them dry. If fresh ones, you’ll need to take the stones out – if you have a de-stoning device (as my brother, whose kitchen it was I was cooking in, has), use this then quarter. If not, take them out as you quarter them. Now coat them in about 2 tablespoons of self-raising flour.

For the cake, cream the butter and sugar together until light, pale and fluffy. Now gradually beat in the whisked eggs a little at a time. 

Sift the flour and carefully fold this into the creamed mixture using a metal spoon. Put in two thirds of the cherries together with the ground almonds and carefully fold these into the cake, adding one or two drops of almond extract (or vanilla extract if using that). 

Now spoon the cake mix into the prepared tin, level off the top with the back of a spoon, then sprinkle over the remaining third of the cherries and poke them just under the surface with a teaspoon. 

Bake the cake near the centre of the oven for 50 minutes, then cover with foil and continue cooking for a further 10 minutes, or until the centre is springy to touch. 

Cool the cake in the tin for 15 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack to cool. Now all that’s left is to enjoy it with a little single cream or perhaps a nice cup of tea!

Today’s tip:

Apart from the tip to stop the cherries sinking, if you’re using a spring-form tin, to make it easier taking it in and out of the oven without destabilising the base, put it on a baking sheet for conveyance.

Also, having eaten a slice of the cake after dinner, I reckon a little dry Spanish sherry would work very nicely with it too, or maybe a chilled vermouth.

Baked Christmas Eve 2014 in Melbourne!

Adapted from: http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/old-fashioned-cherry-cake.html