White Chocolate & Cherry Loaf Cake

Hi Everyone!

Today I have made a white chocolate and cherry loaf cake which is a basic vanilla sponge cake with the addition of cherries and white chocolate topped with a white chocolate and cream cheese frosting.

INGREDIENTS

For the Cake:

225g Butter, softened

225g Golden Caster Sugar

4 Eggs, beaten

2 tsps Vanilla Extract

225 g Self Raising Flour

375g Cherries

175g White Chocolate, chopped

For the Frosting:

100g White Chocolate, broken

140g Cream cheese or Mascarpone

White Chocolate curls or Cherries to decorate (optional)

METHOD

1. Pre heat oven to 180C/ Gas Mark 4 and line a loaf tin.

2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy then add the eggs, one at a time along with the vanilla.

3. Fold in the sifted flour until the mixture is smooth.

4. Dust the cherries in flour and stir half of the cherries and chocolate into the mixture.

5. Spoon the mixture into the tin and then sprinkle the remaining cherries and chocolate over the top and press down slightly. 

6. Bake in the oven for 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes.

7. Remove the cake from the oven and insert a skewer into the middle of the cake which should come out clean (be careful not to confuse melted chocolate with raw cake mix).

8. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for a while before transferring it to a wire rack to cool thoroughly.

9. When the cake has cooled make the frosting, first melt the chocolate in a bowl over some simmering water then leave to cool.

10. Make sure that your cream cheese or mascarpone is at room temperature then quickly stir one tablespoon of it into the melted chocolate  then beat in the remaining, making sure not to over beat. Now spread the frosting over the cake.

Why do cherries always fall to the bottom no matter what you do?!!

This cake is super tasty and moist but very rich. I don't think that it needs as many cherries as the recipe states unless you really really love them! I preferred it the day after baking it as the chocolate had hardened off slightly. I hope that you have enjoyed this post and will give the cake a go!

I took this recipe from the BBC Good Food website.

Maz x