Your email address is required to begin the subscription process. We will use it for customer service and other communications from Milk Street. You can unsubscribe from receiving our emails at any time.
Almond-Coconut Cake with Cherries and Pistachios
In 2012 in London, Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer opened Honey & Co., a tiny restaurant that serves up thoughtfully prepared Middle Eastern comfort food. The couple has since opened Honey & Smoke and Honey & Spice and authored several books. This rustic cake is our adaptation of a recipe from their first title, “Honey & Co.: The Cookbook.” Dense, moist and filled from top to bottom with fruity, nutty flavor and texture, the cake is great as dessert, brunch or with coffee or tea. Honey & Co. flavors it with mahleb, a baking spice made from the seeds from a variety of cherry; we use easier-to-source almond extract. Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days.
10 to 12
Servings
Tip
Don’t use sweetened shredded coconut, as it will make the cake too sugary. Unsweetened shredded coconut—not wide shavings—is the right variety. If fresh cherries are out of season, don’t hesitate to use thawed frozen cherries—they’re equally tasty on the cake. Lastly, don’t worry that inverting the cake out of the pan will cause the toppings to fall off. The fruit and nuts are baked in, so only a couple small pieces may come loose, if any.
1¼ hours
20 minutes active, plus cooling
Ingredients
-
141
grams (10 tablespoons) salted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for the pan
-
100
grams (1 cup) almond flour
Directions
-
01Heat the oven to 350°F with a rack in the middle position. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan, line the bottom with a round of kitchen parchment, then butter the parchment.
Pardon the interruption
You need to be a Milk Street Digital Member to see the full recipe
JOIN MILK STREET DIGITAL & PRINT
12 WEEKS FOR JUST $1
and get access to all of our recipes and articles online, as well as in print.
GET DIGITAL & PRINTReviews
July 27, 2023
All Almond Flour
Could you use all almond flour and omit the all purpose flour? Maybe substitute some other flour for the all purpose?
July 11, 2023
Very flavorful
I used more cherries and more pistachio, but did not adjust the cake recipe. I've made it twice, once to serve friends. Everyone loved it. Not too sweet.
June 10, 2023
Worked great as gluten free cake.
Others who need to bake gluten-free might like to know: I made this cake substituting King Arthur Measure for Measure gluten free flour for the all purpose flour -- measured by weight. It was finished in 40-45 minutes in my oven. The cake was very good -- definitely will be repeated.
March 30, 2023
ALMOND-COCONUT CAKE WITH CHERRIES AND PISTACHIOS
My family, including picky teens and ‘tweens, thoroughly enjoyed this cake. It was easy to make and bake. Removed easily from the baking pan. It did not last. The kids went in for seconds. It makes a nice social event cake. Easy to transport and take elsewhere. I have shared this recipe with numerous friends. This is a definite keeper in my baking repertoire. If one enjoys cherries, pistachios, and almonds this recipe is worth the bake. This recipe varies from the Honey and Co recipe published in their cookbook. I will give their recipe a go someday, but this recipe from MS is delicious as is. Thank you.
March 19, 2023
Amazing cake!
I made this cake for family that is visiting and everyone went wild over it. The almond and cherry flavor combo is a classic and the pistachios added a nice crunch and extra flavor profile to it. Everyone loved it so much that they asked me to make it again today.
Hi Laura -
We never tested the spice in our version of the recipe because we knew most readers wouldn't be able to source it easily. However, ours is an adapted version of Honey & Co.'s original in which they call for 1 1/4 teaspoons of mahleb, so I would probably use that amount since the two recipes are very similar. Hope that helps!
Best,
The Milk Street Team
This is more of a master recipe. I have used a variety of different sugars depending on the fruit I was using. I have also substituted other nut meals for the almond and substituted 1/3 of the AP flour for Teff flour. Spices change depending on the fruit. Thank you so much for such a versatile and easy recipe. I do use a scale for all the ingredients.
I have a home baking business specializing in almond based cakes so I was drawn to any almond cakes recipes. I made this cake using the original recipe from Honey & Co last summer. I used ground mahleb as the recipe called for so I never tried using almond extract. Since ground mahleb is grounded cherry pits, it intensified the cherry flavor throughout the cake. I tried using frozen cherries and while it's still good, fresh cherries are definitely better. Also coconut brings another depth to the flavor so I wouldn't omit it unless you dislike it. Overall, this cake is a winner and so easy to make.
How would one go about scaling this up? Am I going to run into problems simply making 1.5x or 2x the size?
Hi Evan -
We haven't tested this in a larger size, but scaling baking recipes can be tricky. This guide from Serious Eats might be helpful to determine how to scale the ingredients for the pan size you want to use - https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-resize-cake-recipes-to-fit-any-pan. Keep in mind, however, that this cake needs to be turned out of the pan so if you're planning to use a larger 9x13 pan that could be kind of tricky. Good luck!
Best,
The Milk Street Team
Has anyone else had a problem with the toppings (cherries and pistachios) sinking into the cake? I've made this twice now and both times this happened. FYI... I'm at 6400 feet altitude (but I don't feel that's the problem). My only potential solution is to pre-bake it for 5 minutes or so to set the top, and then add the toppings (cherries, pistachios, and sugar) and finish baking. Otherwise, I love this cake.
Hi William -
The topping does sink a little bit into the top of the cake so that the topping stays on when you turn it out. If it is sinking deeper than shown in the photo above, then that would be a problem. We do think this could be related to the altitude. There's a lot less atmospheric pressure at higher elevations because the air is thinner. This causes water to boil at a lower temperature and evaporation to occur faster. The gases from leavening agents (baking powder, baking soda and.yeast, to name a few) can end up expanding too quickly, making cakes rise too early and then fall. The first thing to try would be increasing the oven temperature by 25 degrees to see if the higher temp "locks" in the structure faster. Obviously this means the timing will change and you'll need to monitor for browning. If you still have issues, you will likely need to make micro adjustments to the ingredients - flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs - to see if that solves the problem. Susan Purdy has some well-tested cookbooks on high altitude baking that we would highly recommend.
Best,
The Milk Street Team
I'm a retired FoodStylist of 40 years, and all the toppings sunk into the batter. I live at 700 ft above sea level and don't typically have issues with fruit sinking. I never make adjustments for altitude in Portland Oregon. Rechecked to make sure all quantities were correctly measured. I did beat the sugar in with the eggs until the sugar was forming ribbons off of the beater. The batter didn't seem very stiff when pouring into the pan. I used an oven thermometer and my oven was actually 375 when I put the cake in. I turned the oven down a bit to compensate for the extra 25 degrees. It did brown a little faster than I would have wanted and the center when tested with a knife came out with a little moisture on it at 50 min. I have a technician coming in this weekend to tune up my gas range. Maybe ingredients sunk due to temperature, maybe it was the over beating of egg with sugars. Would love your insight.
Best, Carolyn
I'm a retired FoodStylist of 40 years, and all the toppings sunk into the batter. I live at 700 ft above sea level and don't typically have issues with fruit sinking. I never make adjustments for altitude in Portland Oregon. Rechecked to make sure all quantities were correctly measured. I did beat the sugar in with the eggs until the sugar was forming ribbons off of the beater. The batter didn't seem very stiff when pouring into the pan. I used an oven thermometer and my oven was actually 375 when I put the cake in. I turned the oven down a bit to compensate for the extra 25 degrees. It did brown a little faster than I would have wanted and the center when tested with a knife came out with a little moisture on it at 50 min. I have a technician coming in this weekend to tune up my gas range. Maybe ingredients sunk due to temperature, maybe it was the over beating of egg with sugars. Would love your insight.
Best, Carolyn
I didn't use almond extract because I'm not a huge fan and I'm afraid of using it, but in retrospect, I think it would have worked well with the other flavors. I substituted frozen cranberries for the sweet cherries because I really love them and because I thought the cherries would be too overwhelming and sweet. It was very good. So good that I was considering making it again the next day... That never happens to me!
The one odd thing is the shredded coconut. I'm actually a big fan of everything coconut, but I almost felt like the flavor was extra. It didn't take away from the cake, but I wonder if it would have felt more integrated with the other cake flavors had I used the almond extract.
It's even better the next day.
Become A Subscriber To Rate and Review All Our Recipes.
Please Log in or join today for $1.
This recipe had me at Almond...with Cherries and Pistachios. As someone who avoids coconut at all costs, I didn’t even see the word Coconut until I turned to the page in the magazine.
How bad would it be to omit the half cup of shredded coconut?
If the recipe requires the added bulk of the coconut, what might be substituted?
Thank you.