Dried Cherry, Clementine, and Black Sesame Cake

Deceptively Simple, But Wow!

Who doesn’t love a loaf cake? Whether it’s banana bread, a lemon drizzle cake, etc., I find them to be irresistible. There’s just something about a loaf cake that feels homey and comforting. I’d been thinking about making one with dried tart cherries * for awhile and decided to add them to a recipe I had wanted to try. The recipe came from someone I greatly respect and I had high hopes. Well, I guess you can’t win ‘em all. The cake was disappointing on multiple levels – flavor, texture, etc. That’s when I knew I needed to come up with my own recipe.

I don’t know about you, but I find it irritating when I see a recipe for a loaf cake that is complicated. This is a simple cake and I didn’t want it to involve much more than a couple of bowls and a whisk. After making this 4 times, and being very happy with the end results, I got it down to 2 mixing bowls and 1 small bowl. Plus, the whisk. And another small bowl for the glaze.

If you’ve got a digital scale ,* you won’t have any need for measuring cups. This is the time when I’ve gotta pipe up and sing the virtues of a kitchen scale. * I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that I use it almost daily. It will save you so much time and effort, besides giving you precise measurements, which will enhance your baking and cooking. Set your bowl on the scale and spoon in the ingredients. You’ll never go back to measuring cups once you start using a kitchen scale. * 

Now, back to the cake. I have a pretty Nordic Ware Jubilee loaf pan * that I thought would look festive, so I began by spraying it with plenty of Baker’s Joy. Each and every time I’ve made it, the cake has never stuck at all in the pan. But you can also use a normal 4 1/2 inch x 8 1/2 inch loaf pan. 

I love dried tart cherries and find dried Montmorency cherries * to be particularly delicious. So, I began by roughly chopping up some of those cherries and putting them in a small bowl, along with dried zante currants. * I added a tablespoon of juice from fresh clementines, covered the bowl, microwaved it for 30 seconds, gave the bowl a shake, and another 15 seconds in the microwave. This softened and plumped up the dried fruits nicely.

I then whisked together the dry ingredients, which includes both whole wheat flour and almond flour, besides regular all-purpose flour. The addition of these other flours made for a much more flavorful cake than using only all-purpose flour. I also added 1 1/2 tablespoons of black sesame seeds. * Their flavor and crunch ended up being absolutely wonderful in the cake. But you could also eliminate them and add a half cup of finely chopped nuts of your choice, if the mood strikes you.

Using the same whisk, I mixed butter, sugar, and oil in another bowl. It’s important to whisk rapidly for about 1 minute to be certain it’s well mixed. I then added 2 eggs, one at a time, again being sure to whisk it well. You’ll see how beautiful and light the batter is at this point. After adding sour cream, plenty of clementine zest, and a little of my favorite fiori di Sicilia extract (a beautiful blend of essential oils that is both vanilla and citrus flavored), I folded in the dry ingredients and the fruits. 

Into the oven and after it came out I let it cool for only 10 minutes before turning it out of the pan because I wanted the glaze to go on while the cake was warm.  The glaze is simply a mixture of powdered sugar, clementine juice, heavy cream, and a tiny amount of fiori di Sicilia. By the way, I buy the fiori di Sicilian online from King Arthur Baking and it’s also available from Sur la Table. If you baked the cake in a regular loaf pan, you can leave the cake in the pan, and spoon on all the glaze, where it will be almost absorbed by the cake. Either way it’s delicious. After it had completely cooled, I sprinkled on a little more clementine zest and called it done.

As I mentioned, I made this 4 times in order to get it just right and deemed blog worthy. Each ingredient is there for a reason: sour cream for flavor and tenderness, a little oil instead of only butter for a more moist cake, additional flours for better flavor and texture, black sesame seeds for flavor, crunch, and appearance, both dried cherries * and dried currants * for their tart/sweet flavors, the clementine zest and juice greatly enhance the flavor of the cherries and currants, etc. What you end up with is a soft, medium crumbed cake that is full of citrus and cherry flavors, along with the earthiness and crunch of the black sesame seeds. This isn’t a dense pound cake. 

But if you can’t get your hands on dried currants, * simply add an equal amount of extra dried cherries. * No cherries? Use dried cranberries. If you don’t have fiori di Sicilia, add a teaspoon of vanilla and a few drops of orange oil or a couple extra teaspoons clementine zest. Same goes for the clementines. Feel free to substitute equal amounts of orange juice and zest. In the mood for chocolate? Fold in 1/2 cup chocolate chips with the fruit. Any of these changes or additions will give you a delicious cake. I ended up freezing the last one after I’d eaten a slice, just to see how it would hold up. I took it out of the freezer this morning and let it sit and thaw for a couple of hours. I just ate a slice and it is as good as when it was freshly baked. So, there you have it. A really splendid, versatile, and festive loaf cake that feels spot on for this time of year.