Cherry and Basil Cake

After my delight with our cherry crop from the garden, I spent all of around ten minutes deciding whether to just eat them or to bake them in something. It is no surprise that I chose to bake with half of them and gobble the rest up!

Fresh from the garden.

There are so many classic recipes with cherries and I must admit to having been somewhat overwhelmed by the choice. I started researching what flavours might go well with cherries as I was in an experimenting mood and read somewhat incredulously that basil and cherry go well together. This idea really tickled my fancy as I had some leftover basil from another recipe and I was happy to be able to use it for something special (read a bit different and out there!).

Atticus and Ophelia didn’t bat an eyelid when I said we were going to put the basil in the cake. That said, Ophelia isn’t really old enough to understand that it might be an unusual ingredient for a sweet treat! When I told Simon what I had used them for, there seemed to be a small sigh on the other end of the phone, the sound of resignation and of course you wouldn’t do anything normal with them, Kat!

When it was out of the oven we eagerly took it to a friend’s house for lunch. She may well have been taken aback by the contents of the baked goods, but when we tried it for pudding we were both pleasantly surprised. Simon also agreed that it was quite nice. For one of my stranger ideas, this is high praise from him.

The recipe may need a few tweaks as it was my first time making it, but I wanted to share it with you anyway to let you see what I did with the cherries from the garden that I posted a picture of on Facebook and Instagram.

Ingredients

  • 125g butter or margarine
  • 125g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 150g self-raising flour
  • 1tsp baking powder
  • 1tbsp milk
  • 100g of cherries, stones removed
  • 3 sprigs of basil

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180º fan and grease and line your tin. We used a loaf tin, but you could also use a round or square one.
  2. Put the butter, caster sugar, eggs, flour and baking powder into a large bowl and mix together until fully combined.
  3. Mix the stoned cherries with a tbsp of flour and add them to the mixture.
  4. Cut the basil into the bowl using scissors and mix until everything is combined.
  5. Place in the oven and bake for 40 minutes until the cake is springy to the touch or a skewer comes out clean.
  6. Wait for it to cool before removing it from the tin and slicing it.

If you do try this flavour combination, please do let me know how it works out as I am interested to see if others enjoyed it too. I am sure I will be back with another unusual flavour combinations sometime in the near future!

 

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