Cherries are an integral part of the summer for me, and linked with France because of all my childhood holidays there. On one holiday in Paris as I got on the metro, the doors closed! My Mum and I on one side, my Dad and little sister on the other.
I was distraught, in the days before mobile phones, how would we ever find each other again? However due to my Mum’s quick thinking I didn’t worry for long. Because thankfully we had the cherries, and my biggest of memory of the day is sitting on the platform eating cherries!
Fresh cherry bread, yum!
Is it wrong that is the biggest part of that memory of the day? Eating cherries? Not worrying about my sister, or the fact that my Dad was most likely carrying all the money and our metro tickets? (Please feel free to comment if you think I am an appalling excuse for an older sister!)
So now that it is summer, for the past week or so I have been eating fruit salads and my morning cereals with a handful of fresh cherries, but towards the end of the week they started looking a bit on the forlorn side. Which is when I decided to cross two of my previous recipes with a twist. The first time I made Banana, Blueberry and Coconut Bread it was a bit of a disaster and enough time had passed to try it again, in the time between I had made Cherry and Almond Teabread.
This time I used the main recipe from the Banana, Blueberry and Coconut Bread, but used fresh cherries with flaked almonds.
Cherry and Almond Bread
Makes one loaf.
- 50 grams cup softened butter
- 95 grams sugar
- 140 grams flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 egg
- 5 tbsp vanilla yogurt (I used low fat)
- handful of flaked almonds
- 1 tsp of almond essence
- 100 grams of fresh cherries, halved and de-stoned
Method
- Preheat your oven to 180oC or 350oF
- Cream the butter and sugar together, until fluffy. Then add your egg and almond essence making sure the flavours are combined.
- In another bowl mix the flour, soda and powder, until thoroughly mixed. Rotate between adding a little flour and a little yoghurt, always mixing and finishing up with adding flour.
- Add just over half the cherries to the batter and pour into a well greased baking tin.
- Top with remaining cherries and almonds. Bake for around 50 minutes, making sure to turn it so it doesn’t go overly dark on one side.
My Cherry Loaf was a little on the over-brown side...
... but served with cherry jam and ice cream you couldn't tell.
