This fluffy cherry cake is delicious. When in season look for cherries that are bright dark red, shiny, plump, and quite firm and make sure there is no browning around the stems. Once we have the cherries, we need to remove the pits which is a tedious job but so worth it. Other than pitting the cherries, there’s nothing complicated in making this cake.
prep time 20 min cook time 45-55 min
ingredients
- 450 g cherries, pitted
- 110 g flour
- 70 g potato starch flour ( or corn starch)
- 3 eggs
- 150 g sugar + 2 Tbls
- 80 g butter, melted or 75 ml oil (peanut, sunflower)
- zest of one orange
- 1 Tbls vanilla extract
- 8 g baking powder
- 1. Rinse, dry and pit the cherries and cut them in half.
- 2. Pre heat oven to 180C.
- 3. Butter and flour lightly a spring form pan, mine was 22cm, and sprinkle 2 Tbls of sugar on the bottom and cover it with cherry halves.
- This is how it was explained in the original recipe and I followed it to a t. The end result was this, but I didn’t like it so I flipped the cake 🙂
4. Mix together the flour, potato starch and baking powder.
5. In another bowl beat the eggs, sugar, orange zest and vanilla until thick and light coloured. Pour the melted, cool butter beating with the mixer. Add the dry ingredients and beat lightly just so they are mixed.
6. Pour the batter into the baking pan on top of the cherries. Add the rest of the cherries on top. Some of them will sink into the batter.
7. Bake for 45-55 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.
I don’t know about you, put I prefer this to the “bottoms up” version. But hey, the taste is the same.
Tip: A common problem when adding a heavy fruit like cherries to a cake batter is that the fruit tends to sink to the bottom of the pan during baking. While this in no way affects the flavor of the cake, it does not allow us to appreciate the cherry’s full beauty. One way to avoid the sinking is to add the cherries on top of the batter like in this recipe, or mix a part of them in the batter and add the rest after the cake has baked about 15 minutes.
BUON APPETITO!