Cherry Cake

Cherry Cake! My favourite. I’ve always loved this cake, made in a loaf tin, which my mother often makes. The recipe is mostly my grandmother’s, with some tweaks to make it easier. I haven’t found a better recipe in years of looking.

My mother tells the story of my father’s first visit to her family home. My grandmother offered tea and cake and my father duly complimented her on her ‘lovely Madeira cake’. Oops! Apparently, my grandmother was a bit miffed – not surprisingly, as she had made her best cherry cake. Unfortunately, my father had a slice with no cherries.

Key Ingredients

Original red or dark natural-dyed cherries?

Whatever you like is the short answer. I prefer to use the darker cherries these days. I think they look better and taste better – I know this isn’t a gourmet product, but it is my favourite cake! If the red ones bring back your childhood – go for it!

Butter

This cake is fairly plain, apart from the cherries and a lot of the appeal is in its buttery taste, so it’s worth using butter for this recipe. In fact, I always do use butter because I prefer the flavour – and, of course, nearly 100 years ago, my grandmother would have only used butter!

Secrets of Success

Easy, all-in-one method

As with most of my cakes, Cherry Cake is made using the all-in-one method – put everything in the bowl and mix it well. Two points to bear in mind:

You need soft butter

Your butter does need to be very soft if you’re attempting this by hand. If it isn’t very soft, try helping it along in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time – but be careful not to overdo it.

Mix the cherries by hand

Don’t include the cherries in your all-in-one mix. They must be added at the end, by hand even if you did the rest with a machine. What you don’t want is a pink cake with flecks of cherry

How to get cherries in every slice of Cherry Cake

• Firstly, I use a lot more cherries than the original recipe so they aren’t so thinly spread
• Second, I wash and dry the cherries before I use them to avoid too much sinkage. (Although I’m not too bothered about that mostly.)

• Third, quarter the cherries so they aren’t so heavy. I don’t actually do this – I always halve the cherries – because for me a cherry cake is about the cherries!  It’s probably only worth doing when you want to impress someone – like a would-be suitor for your daughter.

Why are my cakes sometimes dry?

If your cakes turn out dry, check out my article Why Is My Cake Dry? for some of the most common reasons and the solutions.

Does it freeze?

Cherry Cake freezes well. Wrap in foil or, I’ve recently tried beeswax wraps, which work well. Keep for up to 3 months. If you don’t eat much cake, you can cut it in half and freeze half for later.

HELPFUL TOOLS

• Baking parchment loaf tin liner – Line the tin with a liner and forget about it sticking, or greasing the tin – and the washing up is easier too. Leave the cake in the liner if you’re freezing the cake, or while storing in the fridge to keep it moist

• Beeswax Loaf Wrap – I’m trying to reduce the amount of clingfilm, foil and plastic bags that I use, and my biggest problem has been something to wrap loaf cakes in for the freezer. I’ve now found large beeswax wraps that will cover a loaf of bread, and are ideal for loaf cakes. They’re washable and you can even rejuvenate them. Definitely worth a look.

If you like this…

…Why don’t you try:

Stockists

2lb loaf tin

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Baking parchment loaf tin liner

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Beeswax Loaf Wrap

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