When the cake muse descends - Cherry & Coconut Loaf

Complete with sulking cherries

I have had the cake muse sitting quite firmly on my shoulder for some days now.  Each time I looked into the pantry cupboard and my eye lit upon the tub of glace cherries, she'd give my hair a little tug and say "See?  They're still there!".

So, inevitably, something had to be done.

I pondered on a cake involving lime - as I'd been sent a little booklet all about limes by Brazilian Fruit just recently.  That wouldn't do though, as it dawned on me that I'd included two dishes on the menu list that used lime (Spicy Chicken & Salad, plus Pork & Pepper Stir Fry), which would use up the two limes I had in.  Self-imposed rules about not shopping in between regular shopping trips meant I had no hope of replacing said limes, either.

I pondered on a cake utilizing Amaretto.  This seemed like a jolly good idea, to me.  Right up until I realised that we were out of ground almonds.  *sigh*  Self-imposed rules as above would apply in this case, too.

So that brought me back to the cause of all this cake fuss - the glace cherries.  During a visual sweep of the pantry cupboard, I noticed a bag of dessicated coconut - and the Cherry & Coconut idea was born.

I had previously used a recipe from Saint Delia, however often found that the cherries would lie sulking at the bottom of the cake mix, instead of being borne aloft like the little jewels that they were.  I had put this down to the fact that the cake mix always came up a little soft, so investigated other recipes and settled on the following incredibly easy one.  Suffice to say that even with a dusting of flour, the majority of the cherries still insisted on sitting sulking at the bottom (maybe I just buy sulky cherries?) but one or two had the right attitude and had taken off, to float cheerily towards the surface.  Hooray for them and their like!

CHERRY & COCONUT LOAF CAKE

Ingredients :

250g self-raising flour
175g butter, softened
175g caster sugar
3 medium eggs
2 tbsp milk (I used semi-skimmed)
150g glace cherries, a mix of halved and whole
60g dessicated coconut.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180degC/Gas mark 4.

2.  Sift the flour into a bowl and add the butter, sugar, eggs and milk and beat until creamy and smooth.

3.  Fold the cherries and coconut into the mixture.

4.  Spoon into a loaf tin that has been lined with baking paper and level the surface.

5.  Sprinkle with a little sugar and some coconut.

6.  Bake in the centre of the oven for some 45 mins to 1hr.  I would be inclined to check the cake after some 35 minutes and put a silver foil hat on it if the top appears to be well browned, as mine was just starting to catch at 45 minutes.

7.  If a skewer comes out clean, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes or so, before placing on a cooling rack and removing the baking paper.

All you have to do then, is count the hours until tea time!

.