Cherry Cake

The book Salamandastron was a big one for food, with all of the feasts with the hares. One of the many desserts mentioned was a cherry cake. For a while I was toying with the idea of making a vanilla cake with chunks of cherries mixed in, but I was worried about how the fresh fruit would handle the heat of baking. Then I saw a recipe for cherry cupcakes on a blog I follow and decided to use that idea. I used very little sugar in these because my fresh cherries were ripe and sweet. You may need to add a little more if yours are underripe.

Cherry Cake



Prep time: 20 minutes (less if you're a faster cherry pitter than I am)
Cook time: 20 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes

Yield: 1 cake (I recommend 8 slices)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all purpose white flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 30 fresh cherries
• 2 tbsp milk 
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 3 tbsp canola oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Stem, halve, and pit the cherries. You should end up with about two cups of cherry halves
3. In a large bowl, mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda.
4. Place cherries, milk, vinegar, oil, and vanilla into a blender and puree until smooth. It's ok if you have some bits of cherry skin still floating around.
   
5. Pour the cherry mixture into the flour mixture and mix very gently. The baking soda and vinegar will react and you don't want to push out the air. 
   
6. Pour the batter into a cake pan and bake for 20 minutes or until the top is dry and a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool in the pan on a rack until ready to slice and serve.