Cherry and Lemon Cake

I am utterly devastated at the bombshell that was the season finale of the TV series Revenge. Without giving away any spoilers, I cannot believe what the screenwriters made happen! If I could conjure up Emojis on WordPress, they would be crying floods of tears.

I woke up late Saturday morning, with thunder rumbling on overhead. With not much inclination for an early morning run whilst the rain was sheeting from the skies, I decided to head off to the shops, and go dress-shopping. With a wedding to go to later on the Saturday, I’d decided last minute that I didn’t like any of my existing dresses, so hey presto. Luckily, it didn’t take long, which is unusual for me, as I’m not one of those people who manages to go clothes shopping and find a lot of things I like. Particularly as I like dresses that are slightly fitted, and show off some collar and a smidgeon of chest. Everything in the shops these days is really boxy and goes right up to your neck. Eh, unflattering.

Anyway, dress sorted, and off to the wedding. The sun came out, and everybody had a glorious time doing Gangam Style.

Today’s bake isn’t even remotely wedding themed but is based on a really scrummy recipe I saw on foodbeam a few weeks ago, and was desperate to test out. With a bag of fresh cherries waiting to be used, I knew they had to go in.

Cherry Cake by itself sounds oh so English, but it’s been zazzled and franglaised by adding in lemon zest and replacing most of the butter with double cream.

The cake had a really good rise, despite me opening the oven twice during the baking process. It did take a lot longer to bake through than expected, but I know this is often the case when you’ve added fresh fruit to the cake batter.

My cherries weren’t good at standing still, I’m afraid they all migrated to the bottom of the cake, but still they looked beautiful, in delicious pinky-red contrast with the soft yellow crumb of the cake. Perhaps fruit might disperse more successfully in a thicker cake batter.

Cherry and Lemon Cake

• 4 eggs
• 200g caster sugar
• zest of 2 lemons
• 200g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 150g double cream
• 50g butter, melted
• handful fresh cherries, stoned and halved
• softened butter, extra for piping

Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Butter and line a loaf tin. Put the extra softened butter into a piping bag, and cut a small hole in the tip.

Whip the eggs and sugar together until thick and doubled in size. In another bowl, mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture. Then pour a little of this into the cream and melted butter. Mix well, and transfer this back to the main batter mixture, and fold together gently. Gently fold in half the cherries. Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin. Sprinkle the remaining cherries on the top of the batter.

Pipe a line of butter across the cake; and bake for 55 minutes, until the cake is springy, and knife inserted comes back clean.

Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then turn out onto a cooling rack.