Iced Cherry Cake
Cherry cake, with
icing on top, is one of the mainstays of Scottish home baking tearooms.
Ingredients:
8 ounces (250g / one and a quarter cups in North America) self-raising flour
(all-purpose flour with baking powder)
8 ounces (250g / one cup) margarine
8 ounces (250g / one and a quarter cups) caster sugar (fine granulated sugar)
4 eggs (medium)
8 ounces (250g / one cup) glacé cherries
8 ounces (250g / one and a quarter cups) icing sugar (frosting)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 160°C / 325°F / Gas Mark 3 (or slightly higher, if not an electric fan assisted oven)
Line a baking tray (8" x 12" x 1½" or 20cm x 30cm x 3.5cm) with vegetable parchment or waxed paper.
Wash, dry and chop up the cherries to remove the glacé coating (but retaining
some as quarter cherries to decorate the top later).
If you coat them
in some flour it will stop them sinking to the bottom of the cake.
Cream
the margarine and sugar together thoroughly until light and fluffy (to
help the cake rise with the trapped air).
Beat in the eggs, one at a time,
until smooth.
Stir in the flour
Add the cherries
Spread evenly into the tin
Bake in the middle of the oven for about
40 minutes.
Allow to cool in the tin.
Icing:
Add a little water at a time to the icing sugar (frosting), until it has
a consistency which coats the back of a metal spoon without running off.
Remove the cake from the tin and spread the icing sugar evenly on top.
Decorate with quartered cherries.
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