Cherry Quick Bread – Recipe!

There isn’t anything better than a simple baked treat; like this Cherry Quick Bread studded with chunks of sweet cherries in a buttery cake-like crumb.

Frozen cherries are a super smart way to approach this quick bread.  There’s no pitting or stained fingers involved when you grab a bag of cherries from the freezer and allow them to slightly defrost, so you can slice them in half quickly, before you add them to the buttery batter.  A pastry blender or your fingers are the best tools to incorporate the butter into the dry ingredients, allowing the creamy chunks to remain coarse, while you mix the batter by hand in a large bowl.

One tip is to add flour to the cherries before you fold them gently into the batter, so they don’t sink to the bottom of the bread.  I baked my loaf in a long ceramic pan, but a large loaf pan or two smaller loaf pans will do the trick as well.  Pearl or Swedish sugar tops my loaf, but any raw sugar or organic sugar with large grains works beautifully.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup cold butter, diced

3/4 cups buttermilk

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups frozen-slightly defrosted cherries, sliced in half

2 tablespoons coarse sugar or pearl sugar

(Makes 1 Large Loaf)

To Prepare:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a large loaf pan with baking spray or butter and flour pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Whisk to remove any lumps.
3. Add butter and press into flour using a pastry blender or fingertips until coarse crumbs.
4. In a measuring cup, add buttermilk, eggs and vanilla.  Whisk until combined.
5. Pour liquid ingredients into dry and stir by hand until combined.  Add cherries, leaving any liquid behind, stir to combine.
6. Spoon into prepared pan and smooth out on top.  Sprinkle with sugar on top.
7. Bake in oven for 60-65 minutes.  Test with toothpick until it comes mostly clean.
8. Remove bread and let cool 30 minutes before loosing edges with knife and inverting onto a serving platter.
9. Slice and serve.  Enjoy!