February is all about celebrating Valentine’s Day and we have a dessert for you to share with your sweetheart or Galentine’s, day friends. Drumroll…Cherry Almond Cake.
This cake is a vanilla almond cake with cherry buttercream. It is delicate and is perfect for Valentine’s Day. We just love the color of the pink frosting it is so pretty and of course, you can’t celebrate without a little pink.
This cake is a little mini cake which makes it great for sharing with a small group of friends or you can your lovely Valentine.
Let’s get into making this cake, shall we?
As we try to make with all our recipes this cake is simple to make and does not take too many ingredients.
Here are the ingredients you will need:
- Butter
- Powdered Sugar
- Maraschino Cherry Juice and Cherries (the cherries are optional but make a great decoration for our cake.)
- Cake Flour
- All-Purpose Flour
- Sugar
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Salt
- Eggs
- Buttermilk
- Milk
- Vanilla Extract
- Almond Extract
If you have never made a homemade cake before don’t get intimated it is a lot easier than you think.
Vanilla Almond Cake
We are going to start by prepping the cake pans we used two 6” inch cake pans because we just wanted a small cake. Line them both with parchment paper and spray them with non-cooking spray. We will go ahead and set those aside until we are ready to put our batter into them.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Using a standing mixer, add both the flours and salt. Mix on low speed. Add in the butter, we prefer it chopped into little pieces because it will make less of a mess (trust us it is not fun). Beat for one minute, then add in the eggs one at a time.
Next, we are going to add the milk, buttermilk, vanilla extract, and almond extract. The almond extract is going to give it that great flavor to our cake. Mix for three minutes until everything is mixed together and you don’t have any more flour.
Divide that batter equally into the cake pans.
Bake for 40-60 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean.
Let is cool for one hour and then transfer the cakes to a cooling rack.
Cake Tips:
- Flat tops: To get your cake to get the nice flat top we have a tip for you. Grab an old towel cut it into 1 1/2 inch strips and damp them. Wrap them around the cake pan and secure them with a needle or safety pin. Make sure to do this before you prep your pans with cooking oil because it will be a big mess on your hands.
- Separating the Batter: One way we make sure that our cakes are even is by using a kitchen scale. We place the pans on the scale and pour the batter into equal amounts.
Cherry Buttercream
While the cakes are cooling we can start on the cherry buttercream. What is cake without frosting, right? This will only take a few minutes.
Using a standing mixer beat the butter and the powdered sugar on low speed for about 2 minutes.
Add in the cherry juice and raise the speed to medium-high. Put a towel over the mixer because powdered sugar will fly everywhere. We now have some cherry buttercream. We told you it wouldn’t take too long.
If the buttercream is too runny add more powdered sugar. And if it too dry add a splash of milk or heavy cream.
After the cakes have cooled you can begin to frost the cakes. We usually like to add a crumb coat before we frost the rest of the cake.
Crumb Coat:
To crumb coat at cake just roughly frost the cake this does not have to be perfect. Let it chill in the refrigerator to 30 minutes. Then you can begin frosting the rest of your cake.
We frosted our cake with Wilton’s Cake Icer Decorating Tip to make and we used Wilton 2D piping tip to make the decoration on top. Then we placed some maraschino cherries on top for the finishing touch.
Now, all there is left to do is grab some plates and dig in.
Cherry Almond Cake
Ingredients
Cherry Buttercream
- 1 Cup Butter, softened & cubed
- 5 Cups Powdered Sugar
- 1/4 Cup Maraschino Cherry Juice
Vanilla Almond Cake
- 1½ Cup Cake Flour
- 3/4 Cup All-Purpose Flour
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 3/4 tsp Baking Soda
- 3/4 tsp Salt
- 3/4 Cup Butter, softened & cubed
- 2 Eggs
- 2/3 Cup Buttermilk
- 1/2 Cup Whole Milk
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 tsp Almond Extract
Instructions
Vanilla Almond Cake
- Preheat the oven to 325°(F) and prep the cake pans (we used two 6" inch cake pans) with non-stick spray and parchment paper.
- Using a standing mixer add both the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix together on low speed.
- Add in the butter and mix on medium speed for 1 minute.
- Mix the eggs in one at a time until completely combined.
- Add in the buttermilk, milk, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Mix until combined for about 3 minutes.
- Divide the batter equally into the cake pans.
- Bake for 35 - 45 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean.
- Let it cool for 1 hour, then move to a cool rack until completely cooled.
Cherry Buttercream
- Using a standing mixer beat on low speed the butter and powdered sugar until combined.
- Add the maraschino cherry juice and raise the speed to medium-high. Use a towel over the mixer to prevent powdered sugar from flying everywhere,
- If the buttercream is too runny add in a little powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time.If the buttercream is too dry add in a splash of heavy cream or milk.
- Assemble your cake and the frost. For the top decoration, we used a Wilton 2D piping tip and placed maraschino cherries on top.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
We hope you all enjoy! If you make this Valentine M&M Cookie recipe be sure to tag us on Instagram @wonderandcharm or use the hashtag #wonderandcharm. We would love to see your photos.
Looking for more cake recipes? You can find them here.
Want more Valentine’s Day recipes? Be sure to check out our friend Chahinez from Lifestyle of a Foodie lovely collection of Valentine’s Day Cookies.
