My children have a gastronomic obsession with cherries. Especially my six year old daughter Sofia who could quite happily munch her way through multiple bowls of this plump, juicy fruit and ignore all other foods in the process. The distinctive dark red-purple stains on her lips and fingers are a tell-tale sign that she has been raiding the jumbo box of cherries in the fridge once again. 


So with cherries in season I was inspired this morning to experiment and ending up creating a recipe for a Fresh Cherry, Coconut, Banana Cake. I scooped about 300 grams of these cherries out of the box in our fridge and removed the pips. I should have worn gloves, because my hands look like they have been coloured in with a permanent marker! This luscious fruit was then folded through a buttery batter containing among other ingredients, coconut, bananas and vanilla seeds. It was a winner with my children, who each wolfed down generous slices with cold milk.

Fresh Cherry, Coconut, Banana Cake
This will make two 20 cm cakes that have a nostalgic, old fashioned look about them. Wrap one in cellophane as an early Christmas gift for a friend and then serve up the other cake to your own family.

Ingredients for the cake
250 grams unsalted butter, softened
300 grams caster sugar
2 large bananas with a total weight of 500 grams, mashed
vanilla bean seeds – split the pod down the middle lengthwise and scrape out the tiny black seeds with a sharp knife. Pop the remaining pod into your sugar jar to sent the contents. 
4 eggs, preferable free range or organic
100 grams desiccated coconut
300 grams self raising flour
100 grams plain flour
300 grams cherries, pips removed

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees on a conventional setting. Grease 2 x 20 cm springform baking tins and line with baking paper. 

Using an electric mixer, either handheld or free standing, beat together the butter and sugar until very pale. 

Add the bananas, vanilla seeds and eggs and beat until combined. 

Add all of the dry ingredients and beat until smooth and combined. 

Use a spatula to fold through the cherries, taking care not to crush them otherwise the mixture will become overly stained. 

Scrape into your prepared tins and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. 

Cool in the tins until warm to the touch, then pour over the Coconut Icing. After 10 minutes remove cakes from the tin and serve. 

Ingredients for the icing
2.5 cups icing sugar mixture
2 tablespoons shredded coconut
4 – 5 tablespoons boiling water

Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl with a pouring spout (if available) and whisk by hand until smooth. The icing needs to coat the back of the spoon. Pour evenly over the cake while the icing is still warm and allow to set. 


For dinner this evening, we all enjoyed this abundant Crunchy Summer Salad with Lovely Home Cooked Lasagne, which combined loads of fresh veggies with beef, veal and pork mince. You can find this recipe for the rich meat sauce on the post I published on the 13th May, with instructions on how to assemble the layers and make the bechamel published on the 23rd May. 

With this salad I made the most of the appealing green vegetables I had in my fridge like podded peas, cos and green oak lettuce, Lebanese cucumbers with shaved baby fennel and a crisp red capsicum for a burst of red colour. Squeezed over and tossed through was the juice of a lemon, a decent splash of vino cotto and olive oil, with sea salt and black pepper taste.   

I had run out of lasagne sheets and so I asked my son to ride up to the local store and buy another pack. Unfortunately he came home with egg pasta fettuccine. Well, I wasn’t about to go searching elsewhere, so I layered up the meat sauce and bechamel with the palm sized parcels of dried pasta and baked as per a traditional lasagne. It was a success, with all my children pushing their plates forwards to seconds. A home cook needs to be resourceful!