This week as I mentioned on my Monday post, we’ve got an extra special Making Blyton’s food because this cherry cake recipe comes from the woman herself!

The cherry cake recipe, which I found in the Enid Blyton Society Journal was actually first published in a book called ‘As We Like it’ Cookery Recipes by Famous People which was published in 1950.

How could I resist baking the actual cake that Blyton used to bake or had baked for tea and supper? Well, I couldn’t quite frankly but there was a problem. Due to my lateness in finding the recipe, I seem to inadvertently missed cherry season. There is not a supermarket down here in the south east that seems to have cherries in anymore. So I had to go to my fall back option: glacé cherries. In fact it was Fiona’s suggestion because I was panicking that I wouldn’t be able to make the cake.

So, let’s start with the ingredients Blyton provides us with:

• 1/2lb of margarine (or 226g. Also I used butter)
• 6oz of Castor sugar (or 170g)
• 6 oz of Flour (or 170g)
• 3 Eggs
• 6 oz of Cherries (170g)
• Few drops of Vanilla essence.

As you can see, its a fairly simple ingredients list and at first I wondered about not having any visible rising agent in the mix, but as the baking progressed it turned out not to be a problem.

So, worry not as I discovered. Now here’s your method:

1. Beat the margarine and sugar til soft and creamy.
2. Drop in eggs one by one and beat well in between each.
3. Add flour gradually
4. And lastly cherries and flavouring.
5. If too stiff, add a little milk
6. Bake in a moderate oven (I used gas mark 6) to start (about 30 minutes) and then drop to Regulo 3. (I took this to mean gas mark 3. Seemed to work well!)
7. It takes about 1 and a half to 2 hours to bake. (In my oven it took an hour before the skewer came out clean- but see how you go!)

And that is literally all to the cherry cake! Such a simple thing! However there is no note of how big the tin ought to be, or how you should go about greasing the tin. I chose a smallish tin, with a removable bottom which helped with getting the cake out after baking and greased the tin with a little bit of the butter I used for the mixture.

Anyway the cake rose nicely and looks like a lovely vanilla-y sponge with some cherries inside. I’m just sorry that I didn’t get to make it with fresh cherries. However, next time!

Let me know what you think of the cake, and give it a try! We as Blytonites should have a proper go at this cake as it was written by our favourite author!