Hello everyone!
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and festive period, full of song and delicious bakes. In 2018, I hope to bring you more tuneful baking to cheer up a slice of your day. I am also sharing snippets of my baking life on my social media, so I would love it if you came to say hello on Twitter or Instagram.
2018 is the start of a new chapter, but that doesn’t mean that certain recipes don’t stand the test of time. Some recipes have a short shelf-life, but others are made again and again. The recipe I want to share with you today is one that has been a popular favourite in our household for years, and still continues to be special and delicious.
Almond Cherry Cake comes from a book that has always been around in my family kitchen. It is well thumbed, with many pages covered in the contents of cake mixes past, but it still continues to be used very often. The book I am talking about is Jane Pettigrew’s Tea Time. It is full of all the teatime bakes you can imagine, but unfortunately it is now out of print apart from second-hand book sites, so I wanted to share this cake with you so you can make it yourself. The book has a particularly special place in our family history as my parents often visited the tea room in Clapham that the book is based on, and Jane Pettigrew even made their wedding cake!
Although Jane Pettigrew has gone on to write more cookbooks, I think this is her best and this is one of our favourite cakes from it. It comes from the Fancy and Party cakes chapter and in the introduction, Jane says that all of the cakes are perfect for either dessert or as a centrepiece cake for a birthday. I made it for a birthday but we ate it as dessert. It was a lovely way to end a meal and definitely deserved a place in my Sunday Puddings series. It’s dense sponge-like texture is deliciously light, and the jewel-like glace cherries lend added decadence to the cake. It is slightly adapted from the original as I omit the topping and almond essence but it is just how I like it.
Here is the recipe…
Almond Cherry Cake
Ingredients
For the cake
100g (4 oz) butter, softened plus 5ml (1 tsp) to grease tin
150g (5 oz) caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp. to sprinkle over the cake
3 large eggs
90g (3 1/2 oz) ground almonds
40g (1 1/2oz) self-raising flour, sifted
175g (6 oz) dark glace cherries, halved
Equipment
18cm (7 inch) round cake tin
Greaseproof paper
A large mixing bowl
A wooden spoon
A metal spoon
A sharp knife
A Wire Rack
How to make the bake
- Heat the oven to 180’C (350 F/Gas 4) and grease and line an 18cm (7in) round tin.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. (ESB Top Tip : If you haven’t remembered to take the butter out of the fridge in time, just put it in a small heatproof bowl in the microwave for 5 sec bursts until it is as soft as you would like it.) Add the eggs, one at a time, gradually mixing in the ground almonds and beating thoroughly between each addition.
- Using a metal spoon, fold in the flour and cherries and mix well. (ESB Top Tip : To stop the cherries falling to the bottom of the cake, mix the flour and cherries together in a bowl beforehand to make them distribute well throughout the mixture.)
- Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50 – 55 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning the cake out carefully on to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Turn the cake out onto a cake plate and sprinkle with a little extra sugar before serving to your delighted guests!
Thank you for popping by my blog and joining me for my first bake of the year. If you decide to recreate this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram @englishsingingbaker or if you would like to request any recipes you would like me to make in the future, comment down below!
I look forward to seeing you soon for another bake but in the meantime,
Happy Baking!
English Singing Baker x
ESB's A Baker's Diary 
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