Sunday 20 March 2016

Cherry, fudge oat traybake





Cherry, fudge oat traybake aka ‘help – my planned cake/blog post has turned out dismally and is now sitting in the compostables bin where even the foxes will snub it’.  Yes, this cake is the phoenix rising out of the ashes of a doomed ancestor.  I had planned on a peanut butter based cake but something was amiss and it came out both Frisbee-like and savoury, neither of which were ideal outcomes. 




This recipe is my own invention and it developed along the way.  The cherry and fudge components came from being fed up with seeing the ingredients on my baking shelf, and the oats then got involved because I love oats and thought the cake might benefit from some texture.




I mused whether to make it as a 20cm round cake – and it would’ve worked – but I decided on a traybake as that would give shallower slices and stop the oats becoming claggy.  I have mixed advice: wait until it gets completely cool before cutting as it’s very soft and tears otherwise…..on the other hand; if you eat it warm, before the fudge has set, you get divine little sticky pockets of fudgy goo that make a raggedy slice worth it!




As is often the way, things made on the fly are usually the tastiest!  This is no exception – the flavours and textures work so well together and it’s a perfect tasty accompaniment to a cup of tea.  Which I definitely needed after my earlier frustrations…I take it very personally when a recipe fails…i.e. rude words are spoken.





Ingredients

225g unsalted butter, at room temperature
225g light brown soft sugar
3 eggs
225g self raising flour
100g rolled oats
150g fudge chunks
260g tin of black cherries, chopped into pieces – this was the drained weight, the tin was 425g)
3 tablespoons milk


Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/fan oven 160C/350F/gas mark 4.

Grease a 20cm x 30cm traybake tin.

Beat together the butter and sugar until well combined – it won’t go light and whippy.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Fold in the flour and oats.

Fold in the fudge and cherries.

Stir in the milk.

Spoon into the traybake tin and level the surface.

Bake for approximately 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin before cutting into squares.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.


Eat.

11 comments:

Gloria Baker said...

I love cherries CC and this look absolutely amazing!!!

Gluten Free Alchemist said...

Out of disasters come great inspiration CC and this looks like a lovely soft, fluffy cake. Cherries and fudge and oats..... Yum!
I think you must have very fussy foxes where you live...... I think ours would devour anything!

Jo said...

I'll have a raggedy slice, please!

Jean said...

Looks lovely to me! Who needs perfect squares anyway?

sensibilia said...

Yummy! And I have a bag of fudge languishing in the kitchen drawer! It's not like you to experience failure, CC. Congrats on overcoming it with such success!

Cakelaw said...

Well this cake looks devine - you had me at "fudgy".

Snowy said...

This sounds good - love anything with fudge. Great ideas can come from failures, and this one is a great idea CC.

Cakeyboi said...

Sometimes disasters make great things happen and this looks immense! Thank goodness the original bake went wrong otherwise we would never have been treated to this. Lovely!

United Cakedom said...

I love cakes that are made out of things lying around in the cupboards! They are the best kind! It's a shame the peanut butter one didn't work out, but as we are meant to believe that all things happen for a reason and if it hadn't failed then this great cherry, fudge, oat traybake wouldn't have been made! Yum!

Choclette said...

How very frustrating losing a cake and a peanut butter one sounds so good too. But sticky pockets of fudgy goo does it for me.

Janine said...

Great combination! I'm glad it worked out in the end.