Who Knew?

I have just made a cake full of glace cherries. And they have NOT sunk! Apparently, if you rinse the sticky little things, dry and lightly dust them in flour before stirring them into the mix they don't plummet to the bottom of the cake during cooking. The cake I have just made is this cherry and almond loaf by Nigella. It is simple and delicious, but it did need a lot longer in the oven (about 80 minutes in total) before it was ready. This meant covering the top with foil to stop it from browning too much after roughly 50 minutes. Just so you know.

Shockingly bad photo, but don't those cherries look good!

Cheesecake Conversion

I'm not a huge cheesecake fan. Despite my very sweet tooth it is not a pudding I often eat or want to eat.  Probably due to the school dinner variety that I was offered throughout my education. And until last week I had never made one or had a desire to do so.

I don't know what came over me therefore, but with 8 friends coming for dinner I decided I simply HAD to serve cheesecake. Baked cheesecake. Baked cherry cheesecake. With a soured cream topping. It seems that a recipe for this does not exist on the internet, so I had to combine 2 recipes and add my own twist.

It almost went horribly wrong when I discovered that the foil (above) had failed to keep the water (from the 'bain marie', what culinary sophistication) away from the tin and there appeared to be some seepage. I was imagining a very damp biscuit base but carried on regardless. Thankfully my fears were unfounded and the cheesecake was something of a resounding success.

I served it with sour cherry compote to complement the cherries in the mixture. And even I had seconds. I may be converted to cheesecake it seems. As long as it doesn't have a soggy bottom.