Sinking cherries

Cherries are too heavy for your light mixture OP, even I suspect, when halved and rolled in flour.
Do as Lupin and others advise, and have a cherry upside down cake ? sounds delicious, I want some right now.

Have always kept an almost empty bag of flour just for this purpose. Only needs about a dessert spoonful of flour in the bottom. My 'go-to'cake is banana and cherry and I always wash off syrup, dry on kitchen towel then roughly chop the fruit. Thankfully read this tip years ago and followed it ever since.

Tossing fruit – whether glacé cherries or sultanas, raisins, currants, dried cranberries and so in – in flour is fairly standard for ensuring that they don't sink to the bottom of your cake or pudding.

Put the flour, cherries and dried fruit in a tub with a secure lid. Shake thoroughly and coating is a by-lateral consequence. Cutting cherries in half can help. Sieve the flour out into the mix as normal, stir in the fruit last thing.

I always put a bit of the cake mix in the tin - then add the cherries to the rest of the mix so that they've got 'somewhere to go' as it were.
I must add that firstly I wash the gunk off the cherries, then halve them again and again until they're in 'eights' as it makes them so much smaller and less likely to sink. They may look less spectacular but it's better than having a plain cake on top and all cherries below.

I just roll the cherries in flour and never had a problem.
Mix butter and sugar together, add beaten eggs , then flour and any fruit

Yes, wash and dry the cherries.

I think I'd be tempted to allow the fruit to drop to the bottom or even layer the bottom of the tin with cherries, and call it upside down cherry cake.

I am about to try a mango and coconut cake recipe. I shall dry the mango slices first, and roll them in flour.

I rinse the cherries in cold water and dry on kitchen paper. Always mix your fruit in before the wet ingredients.
Works for me ?

i was always taught to wash the sticky cherries then roll in the flour

Also agree with Lupin. My DM used to say the ingredients are good so we're eating it anyway! And we used to argue over the the fallen squidgy bit in the middle of a sponge cake. Yum!

I'm with Lupin. In fact even better would be cutting it horizontally and having the cherry laden layer to yourself.

For anyone trying to heat a healthy diet, have a look at Diabeties UK web site, even if you are not diabetic, there is a section with loads of lovely recipes, with all food contents simply listed and printer friendly!

I had convinced myself I was diabetic so while I was waiting for my blood results, I decided to change my eating habit in anticipation. I printed off about 40 different meals and have been enjoying the results - lost over a stone in weight, blood pressure lower and spending much less on food shopping!

I am not diabetic, not even close, but still use these recipes as I have discovered a love of sweet potatoes - even using them to make cakes now!

The downside with all this cooking ( previously I had drifted into a very unhealthy diet consisting of snack foods) is the amount of washing up after all this cooking!

However, if I am not diabetic, then I need to find another reason for the repeated gum infections which have resulted in me having three teeth out in less than a year!

Talking about almond essence, I made Mary Berry's ice cream (so easy, no machine) but accidentally put in almond essence instead of vanilla essence. DG said "this ice cream is lovely, it tastes of bakewell tart." It has been the chosen flavour ever since.

make your cake as normal omitting the cherries place three quarters of the cake mixture in the tin , wash and dry the cherries put them on top of the cake mixture cover with the remainder of the mix, works for me

A layer of sunken cherries sounds perfectly delicious to me. I would call it cherry layer surprise cake or surprise layer cherry cake.
Good luck with the next one.

I would not myself follow Mary B's method of quartering the cherries as I like the crunch you get from a half or better still a whole cherry. It needs patience but as long as you wash the syrup off, dry well, then dust this should stop the sinking.It pays to pick out the smallest cherries if using them whole as the smaller ones seem to space out rather than cluster together.

The fat in almonds is healthy monounsaturated fat so unless you’ve been told absolutely no type of fat, you should be safe to use ground almonds. Having recently been told that I have low grade type two diabetes, the dietary recommendations are to reduce carbohydrates and increase healthy fats. This is apparently the recommended healthy diet for everyone, along with plenty of fruits and veg.

You don't need to rinse and dry cherries either. Just roll in flour.

As has been said, roll them in flour. You could have googled the answer before making the second cake.

Is there a particular reason you follow a low fat diet ecci53? I would not have thought ground almonds to be high in fat.

I've not made a cherry cake for ages, but the accepted wisdom then was that you should halve and wash the cherries and dry them, then roll them in flour before adding them. That seemed to work.

Agree with Cherrytree59, roll cherries in flour - works for me.

We like a lot of almondy flavour (favourite food and drink is marzipan and amaretto - don't have it very often, though). It is a very small bottle.
I can't use ground almonds due to the high fat content. I will try rinsing and drying the cherries next time.
Thanks for all the advice.

My go-to recipe for cherry cake is Delia Smith's one from her Book of Cakes. It uses ground almonds as well as flour and I always start by rinsing the cherries in boiling water and drying them on kitchen paper before rolling them in some of the ground almonds before adding them to the mix. Half a bottle of almond essence?
Using Delia's recipe I have never had the cherries sink.