Good Eating Monday: Maraschino Cherry Cordial Bread!

I spent my hiatus from Monday "Good Eating" posts last fall trying out Quick Bread recipes from Pinterest.

The definition of a "quick bread" is "any bread made without yeast as a leavening agent."
This includes muffins, banana breads, pancakes, Irish soda bread, cornbread, brownies and even cookies----any baking recipe that uses baking powder or soda instead of yeast is a "quick bread."

The type of quick bread recipes I was trying out were the sweet loaf types, such as banana bread or pumpkin bread, which are well known examples.

But there is more to the world of sweet quick breads then just banana or pumpkin.

So, for Good Eating today I present one of my new favorites:
 Maraschino Cherry Cordial Bread

The original recipe was simply cherry bread; I made it better by adding semi-sweet chocolate chips!

(The photo is of the bread when I first made with just with cherries---but believe me, it's better with chocolate chips added!) 

This makes a delicious, tender bread that freezes well. Typical Maraschino cherries make the bread a pale pink.

Maraschino Cherry Cordial Bread

Ingredients:

(As it looks without chips)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup oil (or unsweetened applesauce)

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 jars of *Maraschino cherries
(*10 oz each; stemless is easier, but stemmed work fine, too. Reserve 1/3 cup Maraschino juice.)

Optional Glaze:

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Plus reserved Maraschino juice, added 1 teaspoon at a time until glaze reaches a nice drizzle consistency.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray baking pan with cooking oil spray.

In a medium bowl, stir together sugar, milk, egg, oil and vanilla or extract.

In another bowl or in a sifter: combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir together until just combined. (Add a tablespoon of Maraschino juice or additional almond extract to deepen the flavor---especially if you aren't going to add glaze.)

Drain cherries, reserving 1/2 cup juice. If they have stems, remove stems and coarsely chop cherries either by hand with a knife or in a food processor.  

Now add cherries and chocolate chips to batter and gently fold in to combine.

Pour batter into a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan and bake at 350 for 50 -55 minutes. Allow bread to cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove to rack to finish cooling.

Optional Glaze: combine 3/4 cup confectioners sugar, almond extract and just enough maraschino juice to make a glaze you can drizzle back and forth over bread top once it's completely cool.
 Gives the loaf a pretty look.

*****

If you want to make mini-loaves:

This recipe makes three 2 x 4 inch size foil pan mini-loaves. Lessen the baking time to around to 30-35 minutes for smaller size and check with toothpick for doneness---because ovens vary.