Cherry Cake with Vanilla Drizzle (Made with Fresh Cherries)

After so much rain, we've been enjoying some sunshine this past week or two, which prompted an afternoon picnic today in the park with friends. Oliver was excited about having some play time with his friend Murray.... and I suggested we bake a cake today using some of the fresh cherries I brought back from my trip to Sussex on Friday.

I don't often cook with cherries - they are such a delight to eat fresh and rather expensive to buy. 

However, on my way back from the cake course I took in Sussex, there were many stands by the road sides selling fresh, locally grown cherries. I stopped to see as cherries have to be my no 1 favourite fruit and wasn't disappointed. Beautiful, shiny, sweet black cherries. As far as cherries go, they were very good value too ! I came back with 1.5kg just two days ago and already they are all gone :-(

Some time ago, I bought a cherry and olive pitter. We had not had an excuse to use it until now, and I set Oliver to task with a pound of cherries and the pitter. Basically, you put the cherry in the socket and pull the handle. It works like a little gun and pops out the pit. Once he got the hang of it, Oliver was entertained for quite some time and did a very good job with pitting the cherries !

Hmm - he did eat a few... the cherry juice stain round his mouth was a bit of a giveaway.

The boy's had a good time playing ... and arguing !

Murray's little brother Aiden got really excited to find I'd brought tomatoes

After a couple of hours, the weather changed to this....

So it was time for a rapid pack up and head home !

There were quite a number of very loud  thunder cracks. I took some time out just snuggled up with Oliver who needed to nap but was a bit anxious with the thunder. It's not often we get sleepy snuggles now, so had to make the most of it.

Here is a photo of the cake I made on Friday on the course I took. I wanted some practise in "big" cakes and was rather pleased with the results :-)

Here is the recipe we used for our cherry cake :

1.1/2 cups of plain cake flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of plain yogurt

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 large eggs

125ml olive oil

2 cups of fresh cherries, pitted and halved (around 400g)

for the drizzle 

60ml water (1/4 cup)

60ml sugar (1/4 cup) 

1/2 a vanilla pod

Prepare a 2lb silicone loaf mould or metal loaf pan. Grease (I always use butter) and flour or use Cake Release.

Don't panic - this mould fills our 2lb silicone loaf pan mould near to the top. It's a dense cake, so although it rises - does not get very high.

I also put a strip of grease proof paper just along the base and up the sides. This was simply to aid me in removing and transporting a hot cake to a picnic when I knew we didn't have time for it to cool before leaving !

Sift the dry ingredients together. Combine the wet and mix the two together until there are no lumps.

Toss the cherries in some flour and then stir into the batter.

Bake in a pre heated fan oven at 180deg C for 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean.

For the drizzle .....

Just before the end of cooking time, put the sugar for the drizzle, water and vanilla pod in a small pan and bring to the boil. Boil until reduced by  half - about 5mins.

When the cake is ready,  pierce holes in the top with a skewer and pour on the vanilla syrup. Allow to cool before serving.

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - Silicone Bakeware Specialists