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Cherries being placed on top of a pink lambeth cake.

Lambeth Style High Altitude Chocolate Cherry Cake

Heather Smoke
This rich and moist chocolate cake is studded with chopped cherries, and frosted with fluffy cherry buttercream in a beautiful piped Lambeth design.

All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.

5 from 3 votes
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings8

Equipment

  • Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
  • 6-inch Round Cake Pans (x3)
  • Piping Bags and Piping Tips

Ingredients
 

Cake

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
  • ¾ cup + 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 6 tbsp unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp instant espresso powder or instant coffee
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ¼ tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
  • 2 large eggs
  • ½ cup whole milk
  • ½ cup full-fat sour cream
  • ½ cup vegetable oil
  • 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 5 oz (1 cup) pitted sweet cherries, fresh or frozen, chopped into 1/4 inch pieces

Buttercream

  • 2 ½ cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature (substitute half the butter with vegetable shortening, for a more stable buttercream in warm weather)
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 5 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 tbsp meringue powder
  • ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
  • ¼ cup tart cherry juice (or cherry jam, if you're not piping the buttercream)

Instructions
 

Cake

  • Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
  • Grease the bottoms of three 6-inch cake pans with non-stick baking spray.
  • In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
  • Separately, whisk together the eggs, milk, sour cream, oil and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and whisk until well combined, about 15 seconds. Fold in the chopped cherries.
  • Bake the cakes on the center oven rack until a cake tester or sharp knife inserted in the cake comes out clean. If your ingredients are at room temperature, it may take 15-20 minutes for the cakes to bake. My batter was quite cold, due to my using frozen cherries that I didn't allow to fully thaw first, so my cakes took 25 minutes to bake.
  • Set the pans on a cooling rack, cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel, and cool completely before frosting.

Buttercream

  • In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the softened butter and vanilla extract for 1 minute until smooth.
    TIP: If you're doing the piped buttercream design, I highly recommend substituting vegetable shortening for half the butter, for a more stable buttercream.
  • In a separate bowl, combine the powdered sugar, meringue powder and salt. With the mixer on low, gradually add the powdered sugar mixture, alternating with the cherry juice.
  • Increase speed to medium, and beat for about 5 minutes until very light and fluffy, scraping the bowl down occasionally. If your buttercream is a little thin for piping, just add more powdered sugar. If it seems too stiff, add a bit more cherry juice.
  • Turn the speed down to "stir" and mix for 2 minutes to get rid of large air bubbles.
  • Frost your cooled cake with the buttercream - see my post How to Stack, Fill, Crumb Coat and Frost a Layer Cake.
  • For the piped Lambeth cake decoration, see the post above for detailed, step-by-step photos.
Keyword Cake, Cherry, Chocolate, Lambeth, Victorian
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