Cherry and Almond Blondies

I love brownies, they’re chocolatey and chewy and yummy! I personally love a rich super chocolatey brownie with huge chunks of chocolate and the crunchy surprise of cashews or walnuts, but I thought I’d give blondies a go!

We had some hideously unloved cherries going off in the fridge so I thought, why not add cherries to the mix?! I love cooking with almond so I was keen to add almonds too! If you don't like almonds or cherries you can substitute the cherries for any berry type fruit and leave out the almonds if you're not as into nuts as me.

My blondie - not too pretty, but was definitely yummy!

Ingredients

100g fresh cherries (weighed with stones but halve them removing stalks and stones to prepare for baking)

150g chocolate chopped into chunks (of your choice but you need at least 50g of white chocolate to ensure your blondie is blonde... I used 100g Lindt Lindor and 50g Galaxy Caramel)

1 drop almond essence (or vanilla if you’re not as keen on almond as I am)

25g flaked almonds (or other nuts of your choice – but also works without the nuts if you’re not a fan)

200g plain flour

300g sugar

200g butter (I used salted – but add your own salt to the mix if you want to use unsalted butter)

3 eggs

Method

1 – preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180C and grease a large square baking tin

2 – gently heat the butter in a pan until it looks slightly golden and begins to smell sweet, leave to cool for 5 minutes

3 – while the butter cools beat the sugar and eggs together with a whisk until it becomes pale and thick

4 – add 50g of the white chocolate to the butter and stir it in as it melts

5 – to the egg and sugar mix gently fold in the flour, almond essence and butter chocolate mix and stir until combined

6 – add the chocolate chunks and half the cherries to the mix and pour into your prepared baking tin

7 – scatter the rest of the cherries on top of the mix  and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes

8 – when it is golden (and I mean quite a dark golden) on top, remove from oven and leave to cool, when cool cut into squares and enjoy (possibly with a cup of coffee?)  

Let me know if you give these a try and what you think!

Vicki xxx