Double Cherry Quick Bread

Total Time: 1 hr Preparation Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter (melted and slightly cooled, totaling 1 liquid cup)
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (if you want a sweeter bread, increase sugar by 1/2 cup, totaling 2 cups of granulated sugar)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (i use vietnamese cinnamon, which is a rich, less harsh variety)
• 1 (20 ounce) can cherry pie filling
• 1 1/2 cups sour cherries, any juice drained away (this is for the total finished amount of cherries that are pitted and stemmed. prep time does not in)

Recipe

• 1 note: this makes a very, very dense batter. do not make this with a hand mixer; mix it by hand so your motor does not burnt out!
• 2 also, the baked top of the loaves or muffins is very dark! it can "read" as being done but don't be fooled! test doneness by inserting a wooden toothpick into the center of the muffin or loaf before removing from oven, and if it's clean of batter when removed, your bread/muffin is baked.
• 3 preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• 4 grease giant muffin tins or small loaf pans (6" x 3"). set aside.
• 5 in a small bowl, blend together the beaten eggs, almond extract and melted (but cooled) butter. set aside.
• 6 in a large 4 quart capacity bowl, sift the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon to make sure it's thoroughly combined. create a "well" in the center of the dry ingredients to add the egg mixture.
• 7 with a sturdy wooden spoon handy, add egg mixture to well in dry ingredients and fold the dry and wet ingredients together until well incorporated. batter is very, very stiff at this stage and puts up a fight!
• 8 add the canned cherry pie mix and fresh sour cherries to the batter. put your back into it and fold the cherries into the batter until it is uniformly pink in colour. congratulations! you're almost done!
• 9 i use a plastic one cup measuring cup to scoop the batter out and push it into the greased loaf or muffin tins with my finger. do not exceed the 1/2 full mark or they will overflow in the oven!
• 10 bake at 350 degrees until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. for large muffins the time is 30 minutes. for 6" x 3" loaves, it's 40 minutes. for large loaves, it can be from 60 to 80 minutes and you risk burning the top! (i'm just saying).
• 11 remove from oven when done and cool baked goods in pan on wire cooling racks for 10 minutes. if well greased, cherry bread will flip right out of the pans! these breads/muffins really retain their heat so don't attempt to eat straight away, as tempting as it seems. allow to cool an additional 30 minutes before enjoying this cherry quick bread. :)
• 12 yield from this recipe: 6 large muffins and 3 small loaf pans. this strange "yield" is because i didn't have enough loaf or muffin pans to make only one type of cherry bread or muffin. lol.