Happy Fourth of July! Woke up this morning and wanted to bake something new to bring to our friend’s house this evening. Fresh cherries and a new cherry pitter so let’s bake a cake that we can incorporate these beautiful fresh cherries into. I also added buttermilk but you can use regular milk, I had the buttermilk in the house and I just thought it would be perfectly fine to use in this recipe and it was. I found this recipe awhile back and have made some changes to the original. This is cherry season and they are just amazing but if you can’t find fresh cherries you can always use frozen and they’re already pitted as an extra added bonus. 
What I actually did to make the pitting easier was to freeze the fresh cherries for a few hours, usually they will work well right out of fridge but it was even easier to pit them while they were a little bit frozen. It’s always a little scary when you offer to bake something for someone and it’s the first time you’ve actually baked it yourself. This was delicious. Pretty light and very tasty, and a beautiful presentation . We had a wonderful night with our friends and a very Happy Fourth of July.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup lime juice
3/4 cup buttermilk or regular milk ( I actually take milk out of fridge so it’s not very cold )
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs ( room temperature please)
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cherries , pitted and cut into quarters ( fresh or frozen) I sprinkle a little flour over the cherries. (app. 1/2 a tablespoon of flour)
Glaze:
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
Zest of one lime
3 Tablespoons fresh lime juice
*if glaze is too thick add a little water, up to 1 tablespoon will probably do the trick, glaze did get a little thick so I did add tablespoon of water to thin out, use a whisk or a fork to get it going. You need to be able to spoon over cake so not too thick.
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a standard bundt pan or just spray with Pam Baking Spray.
Combine lime juice and buttermilk in a small bowl and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the oil, eggs and sugar until smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla extract, the baking soda and the baking powder. Beat well to combine. Turn the mixer to low and add half the flour , then add the juice and milk , then the remaining flour, beat until just combined.
Pour about 3/4 of the batter into the prepared bundt pan. Sprinkle the chopped cherries over the batter. Pour the remaining batter over the cherries, covering them completely.
Place the cake in the preheated oven on center rack and bake at 350 degrees for 40 – 45 minutes. I actually cooked for 43 minutes, using a cake tester that came out clean.
Remove cake from oven and allow to completely cool before glazing.
Combine all glaze ingredients until smooth. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake.
Cooking with Candi 