Chocolate Cherry Bundt

There just isn't enough chocolate in the world to please some people. When I said the other day that I had a yearning for a sticky chocolate cake, Husband asked for cherries in it. So I found this recipe on thesouthernladycooks.com, which I have adapted to European measurements and ingredients. It is delicious, dark, sticky and moreish.

250g self-raising flour

½ tsp salt

70g cocoa

125g caster sugar

2 eggs

125g butter, melted

250g greek yogurt

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 can cherry pie filling

If you  haven’t got cherry pie filling, then do as I did and use a large can of stoned cherries, drained. Thicken the juices to pie filling texture with a dessert spoon of cornflour and a drop of water (or, in my case, cherry brandy). Let it cool with the cherries in and voila!

This is an easy cake to mix. Take all the dry ingredients and whisk them together in a bowl. Add the beaten eggs, butter, yogurt, vanilla extract and cherry pie filling. Mix the batter (not too thoroughly). 

Pour into a bundt tin, two 22cm round tins or a loaf tin and bake in a moderate oven, gas mark 4, 180c, 350f. For the bundt tin I use it took an hour - check from 55 minutes onwards. For two layers, start checking at 30 mins. The skewer will have just damp crumbs when it is done.

This is quite a firm, moist cake. I covered mine with ganache; the best plain chocolate you have with some cream.  Bring the cream to boiling, or just under. Remove from the heat and drop the chopped plain chocolate in to melt. I will leave quantities to your own taste - but about two parts chocolate to one part cream. When it is cooled (and thickened a little) pour over your cake. You can see from the picture that I clearly lack patience and should have cooled my ganache for longer. If you are making a layer cake, you might want ganache in the middle as well. For this, let the ganache cool a little more & whip it to increase firmness & volume.