Italian Cherry and Walnut Cake

When she realised it was cherry season here and I was on the hunt for delicious things to do with the cherries from our orchard, our friend Christine sent me an unusual Italian cherry and walnut cake recipe. She said she had just made it for a dinner party (their first since lockdown eased in Australia) and it had been a great success. Since it used not one ingredient that I can grow myself, but two, I was right on it. We enjoyed it and thought it was very Italian with its rather macaronadish texture.

Ingredients
2 eggs, beaten with a fork
1 cup castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 cups stoned cherries

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180C.
2. Line a 24cm springform tin.
3. Put the eggs, sugar and vanilla in the mixing bowl and beat for 2 minutes on high speed with the balloon whisk on your stand mixer, so that it is creamy and aerated.
4. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl, then lightly stir in the walnuts.
5. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and incorporate the two on low speed.
6. Fold in the cherries by hand with a metal spoon.
7. Bake for about an hour.
8. Cool in the tin.
9. Serves 8.

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