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    Cherry & almond heart cake

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    *mandatory

    Cherry & almond heart cake

    • Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus cooling
    • Cooking time: 1 hour
    • Total time: 1 hour 20 minutes, plus cooling

    Serves: 12

    Ingredients

    250g unsalted butter, softened
    180g dried cherries, roughly chopped
    175g self-raising flour, sifted, plus 1 tbsp extra for dusting
    300g golden caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp for the syrup
    5 large British Blacktail Free Range Eggs, at room temperature
    100g ground almonds, sifted
    10 whole cardamom pods, seeds finely ground
    ¼ tsp salt
    75g flaked almonds
    1 large orange, zest of all, 6 tbsp juice

    Method

    1. Grease a 23cm round springform tin, then line the base and sides with baking parchment. Preheat the oven to 180˚C, gas mark 4. Dust 140g cherries in 1 tbsp flour and set aside. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and light, then beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding 1 tbsp flour with the last egg.

    2. Add the remaining flour, the ground almonds, ground cardamom and salt, and fold in with a spatula. Fold in the floured cherries, 50g flaked almonds, the orange zest and 1 tbsp juice. Scrape into the tin and level the top. Arrange the remaining 40g cherries on top in a heart shape (be careful not to poke them in), then scatter the remaining 25g flaked almonds around. Bake in the middle of the oven for 55 minutes-1 hour, covering the cake loosely with foil after 45 minutes, until risen, golden and a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack.

    3. Transfer the cake to a serving plate and remove the paper. For the syrup, put the remaining 5 tbsp orange juice and 1 tbsp sugar in a small pan and boil for a few minutes until syrupy. Drizzle the syrup over the cake and serve just warm.


    Cook’s tip
    If you’re finding cardamom seeds hard to grind with a pestle and mortar, add 1 tsp of the sugar, which will help things along.

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    This recipe appeared within the February 2020 recipe card collection.
    Recipe cards are free to pick up every month in Waitrose & Partners stores

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