These totally moreish cakes take about five minutes to make so can easily be whipped up before your guests arrive (or indeed at any other time!) and are particularly delicious fresh from the oven when the top is slightly gooey and crispy. If you use tinned cherries, they don’t keep for more than a day (they’ll go soggy), so use glace cherries instead if you want to make them in advance.
Makes 12
150ml soya milk/rice milk
1tsp lemon juice
80g sugar
50ml sunflower oil
100g Doves Farm gluten free self-raising flour
50g ground almonds
1tsp baking powder (check it’s a wheat-free version, though
most are)
2 drops of natural almond essence
1 tin stoned dark cherries or a tub of naturally-coloured
glace cherries
Oven at 160C. Before you start, halve 12-16 of the cherries
and place the cupcake cases in a cupcake tray. In a bowl, place all the
remaining ingredients and mix with a fork – it’ll be pretty sloppy, but that’s
OK. Add the cherry halves and mix again. Distribute the mixture and cherries
into the 12 cupcake cases and then place in the oven. The cakes should be
cooked and lightly browned after 30 minutes. Here I've topped them with 'buttercream' icing made from some Pure margarine, icing sugar and a little of the juice from the tinned cherries, but to be honest they don't really need it.