Another sour cherry summer recipe following my earlier post on the chilled sour cherry soup.

Ingredients

• 800 gram (~1.8lb) sour cherries
• 200 gram (7 oz) pastry/plain flour
• 200 gram (1.7 stick) butter at room temperature
• 2 medium eggs
• 250 gram caster sugar (8.8 oz) (150g for the dough, 100g to sprinkle the cherries with)
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 100 gram (3.5 oz) breadcrumbs, ideally home made from dried bread
• a pinch of salt

How to make

1. In preparation wash and pit the cherries, set aside in a colander to drip as much of the liquid out as possible
2. Beat the butter and the 150 gram sugar with the little salt together until white and fluffy, best to use an electric mixer.
3. Add the two eggs and combine well, beating them together for a while
4. Mix the baking powder with the flour evenly, then gradually combine with the sugary egg and butter. This should result in a soft dough, switch to kneading it by hand.
5. Set aside 1/3 of the dough for the lattice top and roll out the remaining 2/3 to line a medium sized baking tray (about 34.5 cm x 24.4 cm  – or – 13.5” x 9.6”)
6. Sprinkle the rolled out dough with half of the breadcrumbs
7. Lightly squeeze the pitted cherries to drain the juices and place and evenly distribute on top of the dough and breadcrumbs
8. Sprinkle the cherries with the rest of the sugar, then the other half of the breadcrumbs.  The breadcrumbs are there to stop the cake getting too soggy.
9. Roll the rest of the dough into pencil thick long pieces and create the lace pattern on top by laying them in a cross pattern.
10. Bake in a preheated 180°C (350°F) oven for 25-30 minutes till slightly golden and cooked through.
    Let it cool in the tray, could be served warm or cold.