Day: 19 July 2026

Cherry cake

This is adapted from a basic recipe in ‘The complete farmhouse kitchen cookbook’ – now a very old and rebound book with stains on the pages. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 175g margarine or butter – room temperature
  • 175g caster sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 125g self-raising flour
  • 75g plain flour
  • 50g ground almonds or almond flour
  • 175g glace cherries, washed, dried and cut into halves and quarters

METHOD:

  • Set the oven to 160C, and grease a 18cm square tin or 20cm round tin, and line with baking paper. I have also used a large loaf tin in an emergency, but the square tin works the best
  • Beat the fat and the sugar together to form a cream
  • Beat in the eggs one at a time
  • Sift the flours together and mix in the cherries so they are well coated (this keeps them apart in the cake) then stir in the ground almonds
  • Add the flour/almond/cherry mix to the butter/sugar/egg mixture, and fold until well mixed, and pour into the tin
  • Bake for 1 1/4 hours until firm and slightly shrinking from the sides of the tin

As a PS – if you sprinkle a little demerara sugar on the top just before putting into the oven…

 

 

Blackcurrant Jam

The secret of soft fruit jams is to cook the fruit before adding the sugar. The fruit should be tender; try simmering very slowly for around 15 minutes. Blackcurrants are very flavourful, and full of pectin, so this is a very straightforward jam to make.

For jars, I wash these in the dishwasher, and then put the lids into boiling water and the jars into the oven at 80 C.  

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 kg blackcurrants
  • 1.25 kg granulated sugar
  • 800 ml water

METHOD:

  • simmer the fruit and water until the blackcurrants are soft
  • stir in the sugar and cook slowly until the sugar has dissolved
  • Boil rapidly to the setting point. I use the cold saucer technique, so that a drop of hot jam on a cold saucer forms a wrinkle when pushed with a finger.
  • Pour into heated jars, and put the dried lids on. 

Blackcurrants go well with blueberries, blackberries, figs, grapes, lemon, lime, passion fruit, pears, raspberry, redcurrent, strawberries, ginger, mint, rosemary and thyme. You can also add rose or vanilla essence. If I am mixing flavours, I usually stick to two. Blackcurrant and mint is a favourite.