Cherry Almond Cake

You can tell from the title that this is definitely not a post for a seasonal recipe. It’d be quite difficult to find a bag of fresh cherries now in the middle of September. This is simply a reminder of summer (not that it’s any cooler here in California than it was a couple of months ago) and a lazy afternoon spent creating something delicious in the kitchen.

The memories of a beautiful cherry, almond and pistachio tart that I had in Paris was my inspiration behind this experiment. It wasn’t a difficult one to put together either given the natural affinity for each other shared by cherries and almonds.

Even though I’ve only tested this recipe once, it turned out to be a crumbly, moist cake with the flavours in perfect harmony with each other. Try it out when you have a little time to spare- you’ll be rewarded with a scrumptious treat for not too much effort at all.

Cherry Almond Cake

Ingredients

200g/7oz butter

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup self raising flour

1 cup ground almonds

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

300g/10oz fresh cherries – washed and pitted

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Grease and line a standard loaf tin. Using a stand mixer or a hand held electric whisk, beat the sugar and butter together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, mixing each one in between each addition. Add the flour, ground almonds and mix it through followed by the almond and vanilla extracts. Fold in the cherries gently into the batter.

Transfer the batter to the prepared loaf tin. Place the tin in the oven and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. If the top of the cake starts turning too dark too quickly, cover the top of the tin loosely with a sheet of foil.