Easter cake recipe

Karen Thomas of The Enchanted Bakery in Tonbridge shares her cherry and almond cake recipe for Easter

Cake

225g caster sugar

225g butter (at room temperature)

80g ground almonds

4 eggs

225g glac� cherries (halved and dusted with flour)

225g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp almond essence

Topping

2tbs apricot jam

500g almond marzipan

Method

1 Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

2 Beat in eggs gradually

3 Add ground almonds and essence

4 Sift flour and fold in a little bit at a time

5 Fold in cherries

6 Spoon mixture into a 9in or 20cm loose-based cake tin

7 Bake in a moderate oven 170�C or Gas Mark 5 for about an hour

8 Test with a skewer, if it comes out clean then cake is cooked

9 Turn oven down to 160�C or Gas 4 if cake is browning too quickly

10 Cool cake in tin for 1/2 an hour, then turn out onto a cooling rack.

11 Leave until the next day and brush with apricot jam

12 Roll out 1/2 marzipan to cover the top of cake, shape the rest of marzipan into 12 equal-sized balls and position equally round top of cake