The Pacific Northwest's cherry crop runs from May through early July. Use a sweet fresh cherry such as Bing or Rainier for this hearty cake. You can substitute frozen cherries, thawed and drained, if fresh fruit is unavailable.
I don't know why this is billed as a dessert rather than a breakfast item as this is basically what it is...I disagree with the opinion that the cherries don't add much as this would be pretty boring without them. It might also be good with dried cherries as another suggests, but the fresh ones help keep the cake moist and the baking concentrates their flavor. I mostly followed the recipe but used all white wheat flour and granulated honey, replacing 1/4 cup with sucanat; and increased the hazelnuts (1/4 cup?), adding them to the batter with the cherries. I also decreased the sugar (granulated honey) in the streusel to 1/3 cup. I let the batter sit overnight to let the flour better absorb the liquid, put it in the oven as it was preheating and baked it 45 minutes. I served it alongside scrambled eggs this morning. I've made CL's blueberry coffee cakes several times but I'm glad to have this recipe as an alternative, and I'll be making this again.
since it's just me and my husband, I decided to half the recipe only keep the full crumb recipe. I baked the cake in a 9 inch glass pie plate with the full crumb recipe to spread over the top. Baked it for 14 min turned around as directed and baked another 14 min. It turned out perfect. Really yummy and we liked the fresh cherries.
Made this for dinner with friends and all our kids. Everyone loved it. It was nice and light. We liked the cherries but maybe next time I'll use dried ones.
This is a delicious coffee cake, but the cherries don't really bring much to the party. I don't think I would have missed them if left out altogether. It's a waste of good, fresh sweet cherries.
