Cherry and Courgette Cake - It's the Cherry on the Cake!

As the cherries on our cherry tree tend to ripen within a short space of time, we bake with them. Turning them into the best Cherry Bakewell you’ve ever tasted, or today a Cherry and Courgette cake.

If you grow your own courgettes, you will know that once the plant starts producing fruits, you can hardly keep up! Over the years we’ve come up with no end of uses for them, both raw and cooked.

In recent years we have been making cakes with them, as they coincide with our soft fruit harvests. They add bulk, fibre and extra vitamins to our cakes.

Rather than eating these delicious confectionaries the traditional way, after a meal or even in-between meals. Which lets face it, non of us need those extra calories. We eat our cakes and puddings for breakfast, usually served with natural yogurt.

I also make all of my cakes and puddings with less sugar than most recipes suggest. It really is quite unnecessary, and just something that our taste buds have got used to. Making these delicious cakes a lot healthier than a lot of breakfast alternatives.

But the first time you make this cake, no ones going to tell you off, if you can’t resist a slice with your afternoon tea!

Ingredients

A punnet of Cherries

2-3 Courgettes grated

4 Free Range Eggs

200g Ground almonds

300g Self raising flour – I use gluten free

100g Sugar

2tbsp Honey

75g Butter

200ml Rape seed oil

Zest of 1 Lemon

1tsp Baking powder or 2tsp if using GF flour

1tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon

Method

If you grow your own, then go to the garden and pick the cherries and courgettes. I promise you, there is nothing more satisfying.

Wash and grate the courgettes, placing them into a sieve above a bowl. This allows excess liquid to drain out. You’ll find that the amount of liquid in the courgettes varies dramatically!

Wash the cherries, then cut them in half and stone them.

Grease two loaf tins with butter and line with baking parchment. Cut the parchment to overhang the tin, this will allow you to pick the cake out of the tin easily.

Turn the oven on to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

Measure out all of the ingredients.

Cream the sugar with the butter until it turns pale.

Keeping the mixer going on high, add the oil and the eggs, one at a time.

Turn the mixer to its lowest setting and add the ground almonds, then the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon & lemon zest.

As soon as the dry ingredients are all mixed in, add the grated courgette.

Switch the mixer off and with a spoon mix in the cherries.

Divide the mixture equally between the two loaf tins. Carefully smooth the surface.

Bake for 35 minutes, then check with a skewer. If it comes out clean, the cake is cooked, if not pop it back in for another five minutes. Repeat this until they are cooked.