CHOCOLATE CHERRY COCONUT CAKE

Chocolate Cherry Coconut Cake

I am loving all those cherries in Aussie supermarkets right now. I was talking to my green grocer and apparently some bans have been lifted by the Australian powers that be and so we are able to have imported American cherries in winter…I am a bit of a Slow Foodie, so I momentarily took pause over the arrival of these in my local…but the thought was dismissed when I saw the beautiful quality of them, and hell, they are cheaper than ours in the height of the season. I expect I’ll be complaining about the Aussie price come summer! In the meantime, cherries are featuring heavily on here…hope you don’t mind!

NEED:

100g butter, cubed

75g dark chocolate, in pieces

90g dark brown sugar

1 tsp Heilala vanilla essence

80g organic desiccated coconut 120g SR flour

1 egg

Enough fresh cherries to make you happy!

DO:

Preheat oven to fan forced 170ºC. Line a 20cm square cake tin with paper that comes up over the sides for easy removal.

Place butter and chocolate into Thermomix bowl and chop for 3 sec/speed 6. Scrape down sides of bowl and melt for 3 min/50ºC/speed 1.

Add remaining ingredients except cherries and blend for 6 sec/speed 6. Scrape down sides of bowl and repeat.

Spread batter into prepared tin and arrange cherries into the batter with stalks poking out.

Bake for 25 minutes or until inserted skewer comes out almost clean. (You want moisture for this cake.)

At this point, I was going to drizzle it with chocolate ganache, but truly, it barely made it to the photograph…so up to you. Serve with fresh cream or ice cream, and I am guessing this cake would improve over time…as in; would have been more moist the next day, because that is what coconut does….but I will never know!