This sponge cake recipe is really simple – an all in one food processor mix – my favourite form of cooking!
The recipe derives from the wonderful English food writer Mary Berry. I have been addicted lately to The Great British Bakeoff television series: http://www.thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/about.php
Mary Berry and co-host Paul Hollywod are utterly charming and fabulous cooks in their own right.
I added Morello cherries to the sponge mixture before baking which makes the sponge a little like a clafoutis.
Ingredients
100 gms butter
100 gms caster sugar
2 free range eggs
100 gms self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
50 gms ground almonds
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
2 tsp milk
A good handful of bottled or tinned Morello cherries
1 tsp flour
1tbl icing sugar for dusting
Method
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C. Grease a 20 cm round cake tin.
Process the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and ground almonds in a food processor until smooth, slightly lighter in colour and glossy looking.
Stir in the vanilla extract and milk. Dust the cherries with a little flour to prevent them sticking and add to the mixture.
Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until the cake is well risen, springy to the touch and has shrunk slightly from the sides of the tin.
Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then loosen the cake from the sides with a round bladed knife, turn it out and finish cooling on a wire rack.
Dust the top with icing sugar – I use a sugar shaker and dust from a height.
Serve with fresh cherries, cream or just on its own.
The Quirk and the Cool 