This is adapted from a recipe by Honey & Co. I have wanted to try this combination of cherry, coconut and almonds as it seemed promising. And it was. It’s a wonderfully moist cake and although the recipe called for fresh-pitted cherries, I used a bag of frozen cherries, which made the whole thing a lot quicker and easier. The only drawback was that frozen cherries contain a lot of water, so the cake needs to bake for a lot longer to dry out the top, or else defrost and drain the cherries before using.
There’s’ a small amount of ground pistachios in the batter, which I substituted for finely chopped pistachios, and I quite liked the crunch they added. This is truly a rookie recipe as the cake batter is super easy to put together with no equipment.

Prep Time | 15 min |
Cook Time | 45 min |
Servings |
round cake
|
- 100 g fine sugar plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling
- 90 g light brown sugar
- 180 g ground almonds
- 30 g pistachios ground or finely chopped
- 45 g desiccated coconut
- 50 g plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or orange blossom water or cardamom powder
- 150 g butter melted
- 3 eggs lightly beaten
- 300 g fresh or frozen cherries pitted
- 50 g pistachios or cashew nuts, roughly chopped for topping
Ingredients
|
![]() |
- Preheat the oven to 190C (170C fan) and lightly grease a 9” ring cake tin with butter.
- If using frozen cherries, allow to defrost and drain.
- Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Pour over the melted butter and mix in the eggs.
- Spoon the batter into the pre-greased tin and smooth down.
- Place the pitted cherries on top the batter.
- Sprinkle the chopped nuts and the 2 tablespoons of sugar.
- Bake for 30-45 minutes until the cake looks a deep golden. A toothpick inserted into the centre should come out clean.
- Allow the cake to cool in the tin, for about 1 hour. Then gently remove by running a knife around the edges.
- The cake stores really well at cool temperature or in the fridge, but is best eaten at room temperature.