(Sunken) Cherry Cake

Another team meeting, another Delia bake. Julie baked us all our Friday treat this week, Old-Fashioned Cherry Cake from page 72 of Delia's Cakes. The full page picture next to the recipe shows slices of the cake with the most perfectly dispersed cherry pieces (I wonder how many times it was baked to get it looking that perfect!) which may have led Julie into a false sense of security...!

This is a pretty simple bake, but with one major pitfall - sunken cherry syndrome! Even Delia admits that the cherries sometimes sink, but doesn't really address how to prevent it. The mixture contains two thirds of the cherries, with the final third of them dropped on top and poked down below the surface, but as Julie's cake shows - this ain't enough! The cake tasted great - a really traditional bake, perfect to have a slice with a cup of tea in the afternoon. However, if this were a bake-off technical, it simply wouldn't do, so here are our top tips for avoiding things like cherries (or other fruit, chocolate chips etc.) sinking in your cake:

1. Wash your cherries first - the sticky sugar syrup they are sitting in when you buy them will weigh them down
2. Dry your washed cherries thoroughly! Delia suggests patting them dry if they're covered in syrup, but in Julie's experience this simply won't cut it - wash and dry them to be sure!
2. Chop them very small - I know it's nice to have big chunky cherries in your cake, but they won't survive the pull of gravity if they're whole or even halved - at least quarter them!
3. Do as Delia says and put half or two thirds in the mixture, and sprinkle the rest evenly on top and poke down so they are just below the surface
4. If it's really important that things don't sink, add a little extra flour to your cake mix - if it's too runny, it won't hold your cherries (don't add too much though or your cake will be dry!)

Good luck defying gravity in the future with all your bakes, and if anything does sink just remember that it all tastes the same, so don't worry about what Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry might say about it!