The English Cherry season tends to end around mid-September but my local supermarket here on Skye had some in stock this week. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I grabbed myself a punnet and embarked on a cake recipe. It would be very easy to fall into the trap of rehashing a Black Forest style cake so I opted for something a little different. Fresh Cherry and Marzipan Cake, the marzipan gives the almond flavour a real boost!
Fresh Cherry and Marzipan Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:
225g softened butter
180g golden caster sugar
150 g self raising flour
100g ground almonds
150g marzipan chopped into very small cubes
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 tablespoon cherry kirsch (optional) swap for a tablespoon of milk
250g fresh cherries , stoned and halved
For the icing:
50g icing sugar
splash of water and/or cherry kirsch
Method:
Preheat the oven to 150c fan and grease and line a 20cm cake tin.
Stoned and halve the cherries then toss them in a bit of flour to absorb the moisture off the cut surface. this will help to stop them sinking.
Cream together with an electric mixer the butter and the sugar.
Add the eggs one at a time and beat into the mixture. Add a bit of flour 
between each egg to stop the mixture curdling. Stir in the rest of the flour, the almonds, baking powder, almond extract and the cherry kirsch.
Into this mixture gently stir in half of the fresh cherries and half of the marzipan cubes.
Pour out into the prepared cake tin. The remainder of the fresh cherries and 
marzipan cubes can now be gently pushed into the top of the cake mixture. Smooth the top over with the back of a spoon to make sure everything is covered by cake mixture.
Place in the oven and cook for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 140c fan. Cook for a further 30 minutes then cover the top of the cake with tinfoil and cook for another 20 minutes. The tin foil will stop the top of the cake becoming too brown.
Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Next remove from 
the tin and allow to completely cool on a wire rack. Once the cake is cool mix the icing sugar with a splash of water and/or kirsch until you have a smooth, runny consistency. Drizzle over the cake with a teaspoon.
And there you have it, a seasonal Fresh Cherry and Marzipan Cake.
