This is a beautiful and easy olive oil cake that can be enhanced with sour cherries, blueberries, or no fruit at all.  If you want a very tall cake, use an 8-inch round, but make sure it is a deep cake pan.  Otherwise, use a 9-inch round. If you don’t have a 9-inch springform pan, it is worth the investment. I’ve made it with both sizes and I would use a 9-inch if your 8-inch is not very deep. If you want to do something special for Valentine’s Day, you can use the stencil idea for any baked goods or just the pink powdered sugar idea without a stencil. It’s easy and fun!

Why You’ll Love This Sour Cherry Almond Cake

• Impressive and pretty, but easy to make
• A special Valentine’s Day treat or great for brunch or dessert
• Very flexible with substitutions 
• Delicious almond and subtle orange flavor, and not too sweet

Ingredients

• Flour – all-purpose flour + blanched almond flour 
• Sugar-  cane sugar or maple sugar (or half cane sugar and half Lakanto sweetener) 
• Grated orange zest – make sure to wash before zesting! Gives a citrus vibrant taste to the cake.
• Eggs – 3 large at room temperature
• Oil – EVOO or almond oil
• Extracts – pure vanilla extract and almond extract
• Milk – regular milk or unsweetened plant milk, at room temperature
• Fruit – tart/sour cherries (I love Sadaf), drained and patted dry 
• Toppings – powdered sugar + freeze-dried red fruit, pulverized (optional)

How to Make Sour Cherry Almond Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line a 9-inch or 8-inch pan with unbleached parchment paper.  Whisk together flours, baking powder, and salt.
2. With a stand mixer or hand held mixer, mix sugar and orange zest until aromatic, about 30-60 seconds. Add in eggs and mix on medium speed until lighter in color, about 3 minutes. With the motor running, pour olive oil into the bowl in a slow, steady stream. Add the vanilla and almond extract. 
3. Stir in half of the flour mixture to the batter. Add all of the milk. Finish with the other half of the flour mixture and mix until just combined. 
4. Gently fold in the cherries with a spatula.
5. Transfer batter to the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes for a 9-inch pan or 50-55 minutes for an 8-inch pan, or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing and transferring to a cooling rack.
6. Cool completely and dust with pink powdered sugar if desired, using a stencil or not.

Tips

• As always, if you want to make this gluten-free, you MUST use a good multi-purpose GF blend, like Bob’s Red Mill or King Arthur. Or my favorite is to use a combo of half GF oat flour and half GF flour blend.
• Another tip for successful baking is to regularly check the dates on your leavening agent (eg, baking powder.)
• It is a key step to pat dry the cherries after draining 

Substitutions

• Almond flour – if you’re nut-free, swap the almond flour for all-purpose flour
• All-purpose flour – multi-purpose GF blend
• Eggs – try 9 Tbs. aquafaba (canned chickpea liquid) whipped with ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar until it looks like shaving cream and fold in at the last step. You may have success with Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer, but I haven’t tried it.
• EVOO – almond oil
• Milk – any plant milk (soy and oat are my favorites for baking.) 
• Sugar – for a lower glycemic: use half cane or maple sugar and half Lakanto or Whole Earth monkfruit/erythritol sweetener

Other recipes you may like:

Olive Oil Yogurt Cake with Citrus Glaze

Grain-Free Upside Down Cherry Cake

Tart Cherry Pie with Lattice Crust

French Strawberry Cake

Whole Grain Pear-Cranberry Buckle

If you give this Sour Cherry Almond Cake a try, snap a pic and tag @pamelasalzman so I can see your beautiful creations. I also really appreciate readers taking the time to leave a rating and review! Subscribe for free to my site for the latest recipes,  updates and things I’m loving lately.  If you enjoy this recipe, check out my online class here!  I teach a new class every month, which you watch on your own time.  Give me an hour a month, and I’ll make you a better, healthier cook!