It’s that happy tummy time of the year again when cherries are aplenty.  We had a huge basket of freshly picked ones from the summer house garden that I just had to bake a cherry cake.

This recipe is from a Czech cookbook that my mother-in-law gave me many Christmases ago.  It always amazes me how the Czech baking recipes are so easy as completely opposed to their dishes which would take half a day for two people to prepare.  This one requires just a few minutes to prepare and the fact that it only has a few ingredients makes it an absolute winner in my book.

FRESH CHERRY CAKE

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup  unwhipped cream (whipping cream that is not whipped, added as liquid to the batter)
•  1 cup white crystal sugar
• 2 cups semi-coarse flour  (can be substituted by all-purpose flour)*
• 1 sachet baking powder (12-15 g)
• fresh cherries
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract*

Instructions:

• Beat eggs with sugar.  Add whipped cream.  Add the flour with the baking powder and mix till ingredients are well-incorporated.  Pour batter into a greased and floured dish.  Wash and pat dry cherries, and coat them in flour before putting them in the batter.  Bake in a pre-heated 180°C oven till skewer or toothpick inserted turns out clean.

*Note that the Czechs are very particular with the type of flour they use.  Other than the very traditional Czech cakes like Babovka,  I have cheated on the recipes so many times  by just using the all-purpose flour and it turned out pretty well, even better.

*The original recipe doesn’t include vanilla but I’m known to not following recipes to a tee. 🙂

To read the original Czech version, please click on the photo above.  The recipe is the one in rectangles.  My translation isn’t polished, but the gist is there.

The husband, who is picky with cakes, loves this.  He had it for breakfast everyday for five days, and with an exception of one slice eaten by me, finished the whole cake all by himself.  That’s my sure indication that this recipe is worth sharing for.

Cookbook:  Hrnečku Vař

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 30-40 minutes

Dobrou chuť!