Cherry Chocolate Coffee Cake

With the last couple of cake-baking experiments being huge debacles , it was like I had lost confidence to bake a proper cake again, in spite of having figured out that the mistake in the earlier cases was with the expired baking soda. But hey, you all know how it feels, right? The fear of failure? After having mixed the best of the ingredients, and great plans for that cake, seeing it end up in a crusty mess is not what we want… so yes, I hadn’t baked a single cake in two months now.

But finally, I decided to get over the fear, and bake this cake, the link to which I got from my Pinterest feed. The photographs looks awesome (now, that is what I call food photography! Wanting you to eat that thing right OFF the computer screen :-) ), and the cake looked totally do-able.

However, getting frozen or fresh raspberries in India is difficult, and I didn’t have the patience to scoot the super markets for this one. I simply replaced raspberries with dried cherries, which I soaked in water for 10 minutes before using. Also, I chose to make a regular cake, not a Bundt one, and reduced the quantity to half. And of course, I had to make the cake eggless, so I replaced the eggs with thick cream.

The result was crusty, sweet and also tart at the same time because of the cherry, and the nice chocolate flavour which was apt for the non-fan of chocolate cakes in me. It also felt like a pound cake, with some filling in it. Whatever it was, it sure was one of my best cakes so far.

Recipe Inspired by – Melangery

Ingredients
AP Flour - 1 1/2 C
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Butter - 75 gms [I used 3/4th of the 100gm Amul butter]
Granulated sugar - 1 C
Thick cream - 3 Tbsp
Vanilla extract - 1/2 Tsp
Yogurt - 1 C
Filling
Granulated sugar - 1/8 C
Light brown sugar - 1/8 C
Unsweetened cocoa powder - 1 Tbsp
Glazing
Some dried cherries
Melted chocolate

 

Method
Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 8 inch round cake tin.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside dry ingredients.
In the bowl of stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy about 5 minutes. Add cream and mix well. Add vanilla.
On low speed, in 3 additions of each, mix in the dry ingredients and yogurt, alternating the dry and wet ingredients until ingredients are just blended. Be careful not to over mix batter.

Make the filling by mixing the sugars  and cocoa powder  in a medium bowl.

Scoop in half the cake batter into your prepared tin and spread evenly to cover the bottom. Sprinkle half of the filling and scatter half of the cherries over the filling. Scoop in rest of the cake batter and spread evenly. Sprinkle rest of the filling on the cake batter.

Bake for 40-50 mins, or till the tester comes out clean.

Serve with coffee or as a dessert after meal.