A Bag of Cherries

When I was in London at the weekend, I was wondering down Berwick Street past a number of fruit and veg stalls. At the first stall, they were selling fresh cherries for £3 a pound but at the second stall the price had gone down to £1.50. I thought that this was a bargain so bought some. Little did I know, but of course I should have guessed, that these cherries were moving towards the overripe stage. Now, I love fresh cherries and usually eat them all in one sitting but these were moving past their best. I decided to pit them all and then have a little search around the internet to find a recipe that I could use them in.

After a quick search, I hadn't come up with anything that took my fancy so I started looking through my cookery books at home and as you know, I have a lot. 10 minutes later, still no inspiration. And then I thought to myself, why don't I just make a victoria sponge batter and add the cherries to it. So that's what I did. I put the following ingredients in the food mixer and blended.

225g marg or butter
225g caster sugar
225g self raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 eggs (the recipe called for large but I only had medium)

I then added a bit of water until the mixture reached dropping consistency. I tend to add water rather than milk just in case I serve the cake up to someone with a lactose intolerance. I then divided the mixture evenly between two greased and lined 20cm round tins. I put the cherries on top and then sprinkled some demerara sugar over the cherries. Here is the batter before being put into the oven.

I then baked the cakes for 25 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees centigrade. I checked the cakes after 20 minutes but they still needed 5 minutes more. It's really important that you don't check before 20 minutes as the cakes will just sink. When I took them out of the oven, the cherries were no longer on the top of the cake. I decided to try a slice (as this was the first time I had made a cherry cake) and it was delicious. I can highly recommend it - why not give it a try.