Birthday special

I have been absolutely rubbish at blogging recently.  I have had so much going on and I was so hoping to have gotten back in to crafting in time for Christmas - but there is still time yet! Hopefully :)

Little Miss J celebrated her birthday last week and when I asked her what she wanted, all she said was "I just want a cherry cake Mummy!".  So how could I not make one?

I had never made a cherry cake before but managed to get a recipe for one.  The original recipe used lemon peel and almond essence, but I am not a big fan of almond essence so I left it out and made a few further tweaks to the recipe!  

125 g glace cherries (washed and dried)
225 g plain flour
50 g semolina
2 1/2 level tsp baking powder
150 g butter at room temperature
125 g golden caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
5 tbsp cold milk
Salt - a pinch

1. Toss the washed and dried cherries in 2 tbsp of flour and set aside. 
2. Sift together the flour, semolina, baking powder and a pinch of salt.
3. Rub in the butter.  Add sugar and cherries.
4. Beat together the eggs, vanilla essence and milk.  Stir into the dry ingredients.
5. Line two 7" sandwich tins and bake at 175 degrees celsius for about 20 minutes or until the sponge is firm to touch. 

You can make this in one big cake tin or a loaf tin and have it just as it is.  Since it was a birthday cake, I made some buttercream icing and spread it on one cake and topped it with morello cherries.  Then put the other cake on top to create a sandwich cake and then I iced the top. 

I was pretty happy with the result, especially since I don't usually frost cakes! And Little Miss J loved it too!