Cherry & Almond Cake

While I am quite a confident cook, or if I can even say so myself at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, a seasoned cook, I am not so sure when it comes to baking. Although I am not new to baking, having made quite a few cakes, cookies, muffins even bread etc, I am always nervous when I am baking. It could be a tried & tested recipe but I am still biting my nails until I have seen the final product.

I would always look at the baking books on the shelf in the store & sigh, thinking whether it will be a good investment. I decided I had to start somewhere and was delighted to find ‘Easy Baking’ and I didn't have to think twice before buying it.

The recipes are basic and limited but have been so neatly presented along with great pictures that I wanted to try everything at once. There are a few recipes that I have already tried but there are some which I have always wanted to try & was on the look out for easy & manageable recipes. And this book gives me exactly that.

I chose this particular cake as my first from this book basically because I had an opened pack of glace cherries which I wanted to use. What happened to the earlier used cherries is a different story for another post

Cherry Almond Cake

Ingredients

• 2 cups Glace Cherries
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup golden caster sugar (I used regular caster sugar)
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup ground Almonds
• 2 3/4 cup Plain Flour
• 1.5 tsp Baking Powder
• Flaked Almonds for topping

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 160 deg C. Prepare a 7 inch square cake tin by lightly greasing it & dusting it with flour.

Cut the glace cherries in half and run water through them to get rid of the syrup. Dry them & keep aside.

Combine the butter, sugar, eggs & ground almonds and beat together.

Sift the flour & baking powder and add to the above wet mixture. Beat well to mix.

Add in the cherries and stir to mix. Spoon in the mixture in the cake tin and smooth the top.

Sprinkle the Almond flakes on the top. I did not have flaked almonds with me so heres what I did. Blanched the almonds & removed the skin and then chopped them into thin slivers and used them to top the cake.

Bake in the pre heated oven for about 1 1/2 hrs to 1 3/4 hrs until a thin knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Leave in the tin for about 10 min and then remove and cool on a wire rack.

When cool enough, cut into slices and store in an Air tight container. We finished off the cake within 2-3 days but I feel it will keep good for about 4-5 days.

My notes: The cake was very nice, tasting a little similar to the pound cake or the butter cake as it is called. Although I would cut the cherries into smaller pieces next time to distribute the sweetness.

This goes to JZ’s Tasty Treats for Lets go Nuts - Almonds. The event has been initiated by Aquadaze of Served with Love.