Think juicily bottled morello cherries – summer sweetness in its most delicious form – and a classic sponge cake with a chocolatey aroma that melts in your mouth: our chocolate cherry bundt cake. The simple-to-follow recipe is best adapted to the ring-shaped pan with the “chimney” in the middle, which allows the cake to be baked evenly. The finishing touch, dark chocolate icing, makes the cake doubly chocolatey. For parties, grand ones, or those snug little ones with a few selected guests, for friends and family, this cake also makes a great gift with its delicate fine crumb and surprising fruitiness – delicious.

Ingredients for the dough:

1 jar of morello cherries (drained weight 350 g)
250 g spelt flour (type 630)
150 g ground almonds
3 tsp cream of tartar baking powder
40 g baking cocoa
100 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
180 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
4 eggs (size L)
200 ml milk
200 g soft butter
knob of butter to grease the tin

Additionally:

approx. 100 g dark chocolate for the icing

1. grease a bundt cake pan and dust (sparsely) with cocoa or flour.

2. preheat the oven to 170 °C (top and bottom heat).

3. drain the morello cherries in a sieve.

4. beat the butter and sugar in a bowl with a hand mixer or food processor at high speed until light and creamy, then beat in the eggs one at a time for 1 minute on high speed.

5. mix the flour, almonds, baking powder, baking cocoa, salt, and cinnamon to taste and fold into the batter alternately with the milk at low speed until just combined and a smooth batter has formed. Refrain from stirring for too long. Carefully fold in the morello cherries.

6. pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out. Bake the chocolate and cherry bundt cake in the preheated oven (grate on the second catch from the bottom) for 55–60 minutes. Test with a skewer to see if the cake is done.

7. remove from the oven, leave to cool slightly, and carefully remove from the pan. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

8. scrape off fine chocolate shavings from the block of dark chocolate with a knife and put the shavings aside for decorating. Melt the remaining chocolate over a bain-marie and spread over the cake with a spoon. Garnish with the chocolate shavings and serve.