Try this delicious cherry & hazelnut cake recipe if you’ve had enough of eating fresh cherries this summer (is that possible?) or use frozen or tinned cherries. Eating cherries is a part of summer that I always look forward to but I often freeze some cherries whole (taking the pits out using an olive stoner) so that I can make recipes like this over the winter as well. The cake itself also freezes well – I have frozen it in slices and just taken out a few slices to heat up and serve with cream or yoghurt when friends come round.
400g cherries (fresh, frozen or tinned)
2 eggs
½ cup caster sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
100 grams hazelnuts, roasted and roughly chopped
Preheat the oven to 150˚C. Grease a 22cm round spring form cake tin and line the base with baking paper. The first time I made this I lined the whole tin but the folds in the paper made dents in the side of the cake.
Divide the cherries into two portions: cut one portion of cherries into halves to put into the cake and reserve the other portion for the topping.
Beat the eggs, both sugars and the vanilla until light and fluffy and tripled in volume.
Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and hazelnuts in a large bowl. Gently fold the flour mixture and one half of the cherries into the eggs, making sure there are no hidden pockets of flour in the batter.
Tip into the tin then arrange the remaining cherries over the top of the batter. Do this at the last moment before you put the tin into the oven and just place them gently on top so that they sink in as little as possible.
Bake for 1 hour until the top is crisp and golden. Leave the cake in the tin to cool completely.
Yum! It looks delicious!