My American adaptation of Mary Berry’s Cherry Cake from the television show “The Great British Bake Off”.
Mary Berry Cherry Cake
By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime
This month for #BundtBakers the theme is all about cherry Bundts. Choosing what to bake was very easy for me, since this cake has been on my radar since I saw it on television (The Great British Bake Off) which although the episode is older, I had just come across it.
It’s nice that the recipe is pretty much laid out for me, since I don’t usually cook other people’s recipes, although I do read a lot of cookbooks and cooking magazines. As a blogger, nowadays I look at the photos more than anything, because I always hope for my pictures to look as good as my food.
But face it- I am a cook, not a professional photographer.
Besides the ease of having it laid out for me here, I also was a bit curious how I would stack up if it had been me on the show. If you have seen that episode, let me know how you think my cake turned out!
I did make a few tweaks evening up the measures and some extracts added.
Don’t forget to scroll down under the recipe print and see the entire lineup of cherry cakes. #BundtBakers have been working very hard! (I mean, you don’t actually think it is easy to eat so much delicious cake do you? ;))
Mary Berry Cherry Cake
Ingredients:
- 6 ounces unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup Ultrafine Baking sugar or Caster sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup almond flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- zest of one lemon (reserve juice)
- 7 ounces candied glace cherries, rinsed and dried
- 2 tablespoons flour
- Baker’s Joy spray
Glaze Ingredients:
- 1-1/4 cups sifted confectioners sugar
- 2-1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from the lemon above)
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon lemon extract
- 2-3 tablespoons toasted sliced almonds
- 4 candied glace cherries, halved
Method:
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Spray a Bundt cake pan with Baker’s Joy spray or grease, flour and shake out excess; set pan aside.
- Cream softened butter with sugar in an electric mixer. If you don’t have Caster sugar, pulse the same amount of granulated sugar in a food processor to give it a finer grain.
- Add eggs one at a time; then add extracts.
- Stir together the flour, almond flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.
- Add flour mixture gradually to mixer and blend until smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Rinse cherries under fresh water, drain, and pat dry with a paper towel. Remember these are glace cherries (fruitcake type), not the maraschino cherries in a jar.
- Cut cherries into fourths, then toss with 2 tablespoons flour until they are thoroughly coated. The flour acts as a glue to help them stay suspended in the batter rather than sinking to the bottom.
- Gently fold cherries into the batter, then spread the batter evenly into the Bundt pan.
- Bake cake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted can be removed without wet batter clinging to it.
- Cool cake in the pan for ten minutes before turning out to finish cooling on a wire rack.
- When cool, mix glaze ( confectioner’s sugar, lemon juice and extracts) and apply to cake, decorating with halves of glace cherries and toasted sliced almonds.
From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com
#Bundt Bakers
March 2018: Cherries
- Apple, Poppyseed and Cherry Bundt Cake from Katinspajz
- Banana Split Bundt Cake from Patty’s Cake
- Bundt Cake Chocolate and Cherries from Merce`s Cake
- Cherry Brownie Bundtlets from Food Lust People Love
- Cherry-Port Swirled Bundt Cake with Almond Streusel from All That’s Left Are The Crumbs
- Cherries Zebra Bundt Cake from PatyCo.Candy bar
- Chocolate Cherry Bundtlets from Sweet Sensations
- Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake from The Queen of Scones
- Glazed Cherry Coconut Cake from Sneha’s Recipe
- Lemon Cherry Babka from A Day in the Life on the Farm
- Lemon Maraschino Buttermilk Bundt Cake from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
- Mary Berry Cherry Cake from Palatable Pastime
- Shirley Temple Bundt Cake from Cookaholic Wife
- White Chocolate Bundt Cake with Black Cherry Jam from I Love Bundt Cakes
#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on the BundtBakers home page.
Sue ! Your cake looks as awesome as the photographs. Good photography.
I didn’t see the episode but your cake looks absolutely awesome.
When I first looked at your cake, I thought it sad cheery cake. And it looked cheerful indeed. This went right onto Bundt Cake Fans. Thanks so much for this lovely, cheery cake.
Beautiful cake and pictures!
So gorgeous!!! I saw this cake when I was researching for ideas…I think I’m going to have to try it!!!
oooh.. how lovely is this! Thanks for sharing at our Cupcake & cake party for Celebrate365 Blog Party!
I made the original and yours. I love the flavors of the extracts. The comments on the original complain how dry it was. No one said anything here. I am taking them both tomorrow to a meeting, so I am worried, so I heated some powdered sugar and lemon juice and spooned it over the cake, like soaking a lemon cake punched with holes. I hope it was just enough to prevent the dryness. Let me know if anyone made this and had it dry. I’ll let you know how they came out.
This one was fine as I recall. Dryness usually occurs from a slight overbake either from cooking time or temp being just a bit too high, so that can occur with any recipe. I know my amounts are just a touch different being converted out of metric, but not by much. I hope yours turned out fine. I would suggest if using a syrup to skip the lemon and make a simple syrup with two parts sugar to one part water or even thicker. So the lemon doesn’t set the flavor off. But don’t use too much syrup as to not make the cake wet or heavy. This is a good trick for cake that has been exposed to air especially when cut or one that is slightly stale. But ice cream on the side can solve that as well.
It turned out great but a little dry, still. Everyone loved it. I think us americans excpect a cake in a bunt pan to be the pound cake or ‘pudding/oil’ cake from the 1970s. I am a novice. If I wanted it a bit more moist, just cook it a bit less or lower my temp? I do have a speedbake on my gas oven, which I used. Could I just add a bit more butter or a quarter cup oil? It was so easy and fast to make, less cutting thecandied cherries
You really shouldn’t use a speed bake setting or convection oven for baking things like cake. If you do, you should check the cake early or lower the temperature a bit, as otherwise that will cause it to be over-baked and dry. I can’t really say for sure exactly what to do with your oven, as I can only vouch for baking this cake with a traditional oven method.
I reduced flour to 1.5 cups in addition using the almond flour. Came out very moist!