Summer Cherry Crunch Cake is an amazing cake when fresh cherries are in season. Growing up, we only had canned cherries, which we made into cherry pie. A family favorite! But cans don’t grow on trees so I had to learn how to make fresh cherry desserts.
Buy a good cherry pitter
The key to any good fresh cherry dessert is a reliable cherry pitter. I have had several over my cooking life time, but there is a new one out by OXO that I love. It will pit 6 cherries at a time, which helps shorten the cherry pitting task tremendously. Literally, it is six times faster!
Cherries are stone fruit, which is a large family that includes peaches, plums and apricots. Any stone fruit can be substituted for fresh cherries in Summer Cherry Crunch Cake. I will be experimenting with other fruits and posting them soon. This cake takes a while to put together, but is so well worth it!
Small tweaks make all the difference
One thing that happened in my cake experiments is that the butter and flour that I used for preparing the baking pan burned. This cake is rather deep and needs a long baking time to fully bake. Also, you can’t avoid greasing and flouring the pan. Sure, there are baking pans coated with non-stick matierials, but those are getting the side eye from the medical community these days. A friend who is a professional baker told me how to line a springform with parchment paper, which I will try and post soon. This seems like the safest and most effective way to keep your cake from burning. I learn something new every time I bake!
Summer Cherry Crunch Cake is not the easiest cake to make. But the extra time and care that you put into this dessert is so well worth your time. My family loves it!
Summer Cherry Crunch Cake
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
Ingredients
Crumble top:
¾ cup all-purpose flour (94g)
¼ cup brown sugar (50g)
2 tbsp. granulated sugar (30g)
1 tsp. cinnamon (2g)
Pinch salt
5 tbsp. melted butter (72g)
½ cup raw slivered almonds (48g)
Cake:
1 ¾ cup sifted all-purpose flour (225g)
1 tbsp. baking powder (12g)
4 eggs
⅔ cup granulated sugar (132g)
¾ cup butter, melted (173g)
½ cup orange juice, room temperature* (120ml)
1 tsp. almond extract (5ml)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (5ml)
1 lbs. fresh cherries, pitted (500g)
Instructions
Heat oven to 350°F/176°C. Butter and flour 10”/25cm springform pan.
To make the crumble topping, stir together flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Pour in the melted butter and and stir until large crumbs form. Stir in the slivered almonds and set aside.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Set aside.
In a medium sized bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, melted butter and orange juice. Add ⅓ of the mixture to the dry ingredients and mix with an electric mixer. Add the remaining thirds, mixing briefly between additions. Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan. Distribute the fresh pitted cherries evenly across the top of the batter. Sprinkle over the crumble topping.
Bake for 40-45 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar and garnish with fresh cherries.
Notes
*Substitute buttermilk for orange juice if necessary
Leave a Reply