Thursday’s Recipes | Cinnamon Cherry Bread

Beautiful & tasty!

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup butter (room temperature)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 & 1/2 cups pitted cherries, halved

For the Cinnamon/Almond mixture

• 1/2 cup almonds
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 2 heaping tablespoons ground cinnamon.

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Lightly grease a 9 inch loaf pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease parchment and set aside.
3. Cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, salt and vanilla extract.
4. Sift together the flour, baking soda and baking powder. Add alternately to the creamed mixture along with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with your dry ingredients.
5. Add the lemon zest and the cherries and blend in with a large wooden spoon.

To Prepare the Cinnamon/Almond Mixture:

1. Put the almonds into a food processor and pulse until they resemble large, course meal. Add the brown sugar, butter and cinnamon and pulse until thoroughly mixed.

To Prepare the Bread:

1. Spoon 1/3 of the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the cinnamon mixture. Repeat the layers twice more, ending with cinnamon on top.
2. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 1 hour or until it tests done when a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove your bread from the oven and let rest in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing from the pan to finish cooling on a rack.