Wednesday 31 December 2014

Happy Anniversary

It is a happy first anniversary of blogging. The blog and I have spents lots of time together, there have been many posts, way in excess of the original goal of two  - three per week and more to come. Writing the blog has been such fun and with so much of it devoted to food what better way to celebrate than with cake.


A quick search on Google and I discovered that paper is the traditional gift for a first anniversary

 so this gorgeous paper bird perched on my grandmother's pearl (faux) cake server was a good choice









as was this little book, perhaps some more projects will be written about,


carnations are the traditional flower, although, one site suggested pansies  and that mother of pearl is the traditional gemstone,

Pansies from the garden and a little treat a gorgeous old button made from mother of pearl and pewter and of a piece mother of pearl to be made into a pendant or worked into an embroidery.





Cherry  Cake with Almond Streusel Topping

Ingredients
185 g soft butter
1 1/4 cups castor sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
finely grated rind of 2 lemons

½ cup sour cream or thick plain yoghurt
1 1/2 cup almond meal/ground almond
2 cups plain flour
300 g pitted cherries

Streusel Topping
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoons cinnamon
60 g butter
1/3 cup slivered almonds

Combine flour, sugar and cinnamon. Rub butter into the flour mixture. Mix in almonds




Method
Beat/cream the butter, sugar vanilla, lemon rind until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time and continue to beat.
Add almond meal and sour cream, mix well. Stir in flour.
Spread mixture into a greased and lined spring form cake pan.
Push cherries into cake mixture, evenly across the cake or spread half the cake batter in the tin, add cherries and then cover with remaining cake batter.
Sprinkle almond streusel topping evenly across the top of the cake.
Bake at 160 deg C until pale golden brown and skewer comes out clean. *Approximately 90 minutes.
Remove from oven and allow the cake to stand for at least 10 minutes before taking the cake out of the tin and putting on a cooling rack.
*Baking time will depend on the size of the cake tin, the smaller and deeper the tin the longer it will take to cook.

Use your judgement about the amount of flour. The mixture should be a thick dropping consistency. If you think it is a bit too thick add some more sour cream or if a bit soft/runny add some more flour. 

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