My Kitchen Rules South Africa

METHOD MORELLO CHERRIES

• Add cherries and juice to a medium-sized pot.
• Let it simmer on a medium to low heat, until the liquid has reduced by half. Watch that the cherries do not break apart.
• Strain the cherries and set aside the cherry liquid.

METHOD BUTTER CAKE

• Cream together butter and castor sugar. Then add egg yolks to the creamed butter and sugar 1 at a time and whisk after each egg yolk, making sure that the yolk is completely incorporated and it starts to turn light yellow.
• In a separate bowl whisk egg whites with a pinch of salt till stiff.
• Add the rest of the ingredients to the butter and egg mixture and mix through, making sure everything is incorporated.
• Gently fold in the egg whites.
• Spray and line a springform pan (26cm) with baking paper. Pour batter into pan.
• Add some of the poached cherries into the batter, try to not get too much sauce into the batter. You can also layer it, batter, cherries, batter, cherries, if that is what you prefer.
• Reserve some cooked cherries to place on top of the cake.
• Bake at 180ºC for 40-45 mins or until a testing pin comes out clean.
• Let it cool down in the springform tin.

METHOD VANILLA CHANTILLY CREAM

• Split the vanilla pod in half, scrape out the seeds.
• Add the cream, vanilla extract, and sugar to the vanilla seeds.
• Whip until soft peaks are formed.

METHOD CHERRY AND ORANGE SAUCE

• Add the cherry liquid to a pot, adding the orange liqueur, and cook down the sauce. 
• Use this sauce to spoon over the cooled down cake and when you serve the cake.  

TO SERVE

• Place a slice of cake on a plate, drizzle over extra cherry and orange sauce.
• Serve with Chantilly vanilla cream, piped next to the cake.
• Dust the cake with icing sugar, add flaked almonds and edible flowers.