I can’t honestly think of a more perfick English summer cake than this.
Methodist vicars, wobbly marquees, WI jam and Laura Ashley, cucumber sarnies, improbable hats, jumble sales and cricket bats.
Drizzle, downpour, deluge, flood. Kitten heels devoured in encroaching mud.
Too much Pimms and dodgy prawns, grass-stained dress, sick on the lawn.
[I promise never to do that again.]
Cherry almond streusel cake
From Cakes (River Cottage Handbook)
Ingredients
- For the cake
- 125g unsalted butter, softened
- 125g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 75g self-raising white flour
- 75g ground almonds
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 300g whole fresh cherries, then stoned and halved
- For the topping
- 25g plain wholemeal flour
- 25g ground almonds
- 50g caster sugar
- 25g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 50g blanched almonds, slivers
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180˚C and take the butter out of the fridge. Stone the cherries. Make the streusel topping while it’s heating up by rubbing in the 25g butter into the flour, almonds and sugar until it looks like breadcrumbs. Prepare a 8 inch / 20cm round springform tin by buttering and lining the base with baking parchment.
- When the oven is at temp, start making the cake.
- Sift the flour into a bowl. In another large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
- Add in eggs gradually, adding a tbsp of the flour with each addition. Stir in ground almonds and extract. Fold in the remaining flour.
- Spoon the cake mixture into the tin, smooth out the top and lay the cherries on top. Sprinkle the streusel mixture on top of that and finally slivered almonds. Bake for 50 minutes until almonds are browned and a skewer comes out clean from the centre. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack.
Preparation time: 30 minute(s)
Cooking time: 50 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 8
Meal type: dessert
Culinary tradition: English
6 Comments on "Cherry and almond streusel cake"
This looks loveellyy
from an english/welsh lass i definitely give it 2 thumbs up and would be proud to have this for the oh-so important meal that is tea-time 
i make a kinddaaa similar cake, with rasp’s instead, and love that so know this must taste as scrummy as it looks
Aw, thanks, yes it was bloody lovely – all credit for the recipe to Pam the Jam of River Cottage fame. I think raspberries would work well too, although if my cupboards were stocked, I might be tempted to substitute ground hazelnuts and roughly chopped hazelnuts for the nuts to really make them shine.
I agree, I’m not sure why people fool around with eating occasions other than breakfast and teatime. Brunch, I suppose, in a pinch but it still seems a bit foreign… ;0) Although that may be the effect of my Aberystwyth upbringing – I’m another English/Welsh girlie you see…
A great streusel cake! So delicious.
Cheers,
Rosa
Is there anything that streusel doesn’t make delicious? :0)
Made your cake and it is really delicious!! MAde some changes as I didn’t have cherries which i’ve replaced for blueberries, and din’t have slithered almonds so no almonds. Added tiny pinch of salt in the base. But mjummmm! Next time will add some lemon zest for a kick but it is definately a keeper. Think it ould work with many different kinds of fruit!
Oh that’s awesome, so glad it was a success! I find slithered almonds tough to find too – I smuggle them back to Nassau in my suitcase (shhhh! don’t tell customs…). Love the lemon idea and pinch of salt too. Let me know if you blog it!