Amaretto almond cakes

These cakes are a riff on one of the best cakes, maybe ever: Belinda Jeffery’s Coconut Almond Cake – with the added touch of maraschino cherries, to turn it into a riff on one of the best cocktails maybe ever – the Amaretto Sour. Funnily enough, real maraschino cherries, if you can find them, are actually quite deep in colour, compared with the sickly syrupy versions that are more readily available. I actually don’t mind if you do use the syrupy ones, as the fluorescence will shoot through like highlighter through a textbook, giving this rich, golden cake a fun pop of colour. You can bake it in a springform tin (20/22cm) or as individual cakes.
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Ingredients 

  • 180 g almond meal
  • 60 g desiccated coconut
  • ½ tsp salt flakes
  • 250 g caster sugar
  • 4 whole eggs
  • 200 g butter melted and cooled (plus a little extra for greasing the tin)
  • 1 tsp amaretto
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • â…› tsp bitter almond aroma ideally or ¼ tsp almond essence
  • Good handful of flaked almonds
  • 10-12 real maraschino cherries
  • Icing sugar optional

Instructions 

  • Preheat oven to 180°C conventional
  • Prepare cake tin/s or silicon molds.
  • Use a fork or whisk to fluff the dry ingredients until well combined.
  • In a large bowl, use a whisk to beat together eggs, then add vanilla, amaretto, and almond flavouring of your choice. Pour in cooled melted butter and use the whisk to ensure everything is incorporated.
  • Pour dry ingredients into wet (it actually doesn’t matter too much which way you go with this one) and stir well with a spatula or the whisk until everything is one runny cake batter. And when I say runny, I mean *runny* – but don’t worry, it comes together in the end!
  • Pour batter into your lined, greased individual cake tins and bake for half an hour.
  • At this point, bring the cake out, scatter flaked almonds and drop in your maraschino cherries.
  • Return to the oven and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes (the cake/s will still have a touch of wobble but should spring back with a light poke).
  • Allow cake/s to cool in the tin, resting on a wire rack (this will help the bottom of the cake to dry out a little more).
  • Dust with icing sugar (if using).

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