Cherry and Vanilla Cake with Walnuts

Well, here I am again. It's been almost a month, I know. But, you guys, there's just so much going on at the moment, I'm having a hard time catching up with everything, let alone take some time for blogging. And I've stopped to squeeze that in just because I think I have to. Baking cakes in a hurry usually leads to unsatisfying results and to uninspired photos which are not worth posting. But today is a slow day. One of those rainy sundays. Perfect occasion to take up blogging again. Here comes a cake I created from several recipes in one of my favorite books. I wanted to bake something with cherries. And you know me by now, I always have to add spices. This time, I went for vanilla because that goes so well with cherries. The sour cream in the dough renders this cake moist and the walnuts give it a crunch. Crumbles on top, now who doesn't love that?!

Recipe
(slightly adapted from one of my new favorites: The Hummingbird Bakery - Süsse Sünden)

190g soft butter, plus some more for greasing the pan
190g sugar
3 eggs
190g flour, plus some for the pan
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
25g sour cream
seeds of one vanilla pod
ca. 100g cherries, pitted, halved
50g walnuts, coarsely chopped

For the crumble:
25g flour
10g cold butter
15g sugar
20g chopped walnuts


Preheat the oven to 170°C (convection oven 150°C). Grease a 20cm cake tin and dust with flour.

Put all the ingredients for the crumble into a small bowl and rub together with your fingers until you have crumbles. Set aside.

In a bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one by one. Scrape down the bowl with a ladle from time to time.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add the flour to the fluffy batter in two portions. When all is well combined, add sour cream and vanilla. Then, add the walnuts and incorporate with a ladle. In the end, add the cherries.

Fill your dough into the prepared tin. Scatter the crumble over your cake. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 50 minutes. Test if the cake is done by inserting a wooden skewer. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. Let cool in the tin first. Then, release from the tin and let cool completely.