Recipe: “Cherry Garcia” Pound Cake

Sometime during the week I left myself a note on my phone: Cherries vanilla almonds chocolate – yogurt Cherry Garcia cake???

I’m not sure where the idea came from aside from the fact that I LOVE cherry vanilla, I love chocolate with cherries, & I love Cherry Garcia ice cream (unfortunately I don’t really like the nondairy version, as almond milk ice cream is too watery-tasting to me).

After a search on Pinterest for vegan loaf cakes I decided to improvise, or rather to start with a prewritten recipe and alter it. I found a lemon blueberry pound cake from Vegan Richa and used it as a base (since I know her recipes are excellent), adding and tweaking various ingredients to get the flavors I wanted.

The result, dear reader, is glorious. Super moist, not cloyingly sweet, studded with big juicy cherries and chocolate chips. Next time I may swap out the vanilla for almond extract, as I also love cherry almond anything (my shampoo is cherry almond and I want to eat it every time I wash my hair). If I do that I’ll probably scatter some sliced almonds on top of the glaze.

I posted a pic on Instagram and Facebook and got hit with lots of requests for the recipe, so, here you go!

Recipe: “Cherry Garcia” Pound Cake

Recipe by Dianne Sylvan

Servings

6-8

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Baking time

1

hour 

Ingredients

• Wet Ingredients

• 1/2 cup nondairy yogurt (I used Silk vanilla soy)

• 1 c nondairy milk (I used Oatly)

• 3/4 c sugar

• 2 tsp vanilla (or almond) extract

• 3 tablespoons canola or other oil

• Dry Ingredients

• 2 c all-purpose flour

• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 3/4 to 1 cup frozen or other pitted cherries tossed in 1 tablespoon flour (the vague measurements here are because you might want a higher ratio of cherry to chocolate, or vice versa, but FYI I used 1 cup of the former and 3/4 cup of the latter)

• 1/2 to 3/4 c chocolate chips (or chopped chocolate)

• Vanilla Glaze

• 1 c powdered sugar

• 2 tablespoons nondairy milk

• 1 tsp vanilla (or almond) extract

• 2-3 tablespoons cherry jam or preserves (optional, but adds an extra punch of cherry flavor)

Let’s get it on

• Preheat your oven to 350F. Spray a loaf pan with nonstick or line it with parchment paper.
• Whisk all the wet ingredients together in a large bowl.
• Whisk the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, then add the dry (except the cherries and chips) to the wet and whisk until well combined.
• Fold in the cherries and the chocolate chips. Scrape the whole mess into the loaf pan and top with a few extra cherries and chips if you like. Bake for 55-60 minutes until it doesn’t jiggle and is golden brown.
• Let the cake rest in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool for at least an hour before glazing so you don’t make a big damn mess.
• Once the cake is cool, put a pan or platter under the cooling rack. Spread the jam (if using) over the top of the cake more or less evenly. Whisk the glaze ingredients together then pour over the top of the cake. (The pan/platter is there to catch the dribbles.)
• Slice and serve to a grateful world.