This time last year, Annie, an industrial designer down here in Dunedin, brought us a traditional Dutch recipe, Kerstkransjes. This year she shares with us a cherry upside-down cake that I can tell you from personal experience tastes amazing! Anyway, over to Annie:
“I am a huge fan of cherries, so when I stumbled upon a recipe for cherry upside-down cake I couldn’t resist and decided to try it for the office as a pre-holiday treat. So I got baking, diligently following it step-by-step. I turned the finished cake out onto a serving platter and took it through to the office. It looked stunning – glossy, deep red cherries glistening all over the top. But when we cut it for that all-important first slice, the cake was not cooked in the middle! Needless to say I was pretty disappointed. But God loves a trier, so when I heard that Dave, one of our mechanical engineers had 16 kg (!) of cherries at home which he handpicked on a cherry orchard in Alexandra, I got him on board to make cherry cake mark II. Dave and I had heaps of fun and the cake turned out perfectly.
“This cake is great with mascarpone or whipped cream and the cherry syrup. I had great success with fresh cherries, but if you can’t get your hands on any, two 400g cans of pitted dark cherries will suffice. Simply drain and use the liquid from the cans.”