This recipe is not only one of my childhood favourites, it has become one of my kids favourites too. It’s one of those recipes, passed down through the family. I’ve had to tinker with it a wee bit though, as the original recipe contained milk, as many loaf cakes do.
The reason many have milk in, is it makes for a denser cake. That way, when you add fruit like cherries, they don’t sink. If you use too light a cake batter, the fruit will sink to the bottom, as happened on many a trial run while trying to perfect this recipe.
To counteract this, I have made the sponge more dense with flour, as opposed to milk, by using a mix more like a madeira cake. The end result is just as tasty as the original, but now dairy free.
This cake is a must for packed lunches and picnics. It travels really well and has no buttercream or icings that might go a bit funny in the heat of the day. It also freezes really well. Just cover in cling film and then a layer of foil and freeze the day you make it.
Ingredients:
5 oz Dairy free margarine
5 oz Caster sugar
3 Eggs
8 oz Self raising Flour
1 tsp Almond Extract
4 oz Cherries (although if you really love cherries, you can get away with more)
4 oz Chocolate Chips (For the recipe I used Moo Free Baking Drops but many dark chocolate chips are dairy free too)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 160°C
Line a loaf tin with baking parchment. You can do this just with the usual parchment, but as that is sometimes tricky I like to use loaf tin cases.
Cream the margarine and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy
Add each egg one at a time with a spoonful of the flour. This prevents the mixture curdling
Fold in the remaining flour
Add the Almond extract, Cherries and Choc Chips and gently fold till they are evenly distributed
Transfer the mix into the prepared loaf tin and put in the oven for an hour
You will know the cake is done when it is a golden brown colour. It shouldn’t have any wobble when you take it out, and a skewer into the center of the cake should come out clean. If in doubt, give it an extra 5 mins.
Leave the cake to cool in the tin. This should be done whenever you have fruit in a cake.
Once cooled, remove from the tin, slice and serve.
It’s probably worth using this recipe as an excuse to talk about trouble shooting with cherries. Sometimes they sink. Even worse, sometimes you wont even know why it’s happened. They are the most troublesome of all the ingredients to use, but here’s some tips if you have a problem.
- Make sure you try to get rid of most of the syrup covering the cherries
- Cut them smaller. If halved cherries keep sinking on you, try quartering them instead. They are less heavy and less likely to sink
- Cover your cherries in a spoonful of the flour. This works in much the same way as removing all the syrup.
And finally, remember, everyone can have a bad baking day. Even if they do sink, I promise you the cake is still delicious.