Cherry and Almond Muffins

I've tried the new Almond Milk by Alpro (check out my review here) and wanted to use it up.  I think cherry and almond go well together, think Bakewell Tarts.  I love cherries so I looked up some Cherry and Almond muffin recipes.  This recipe came about using the muffin recipe I use with some inspiration from bbcgoodfood.com and www.pastryaffair.com .  The latter is in cups but they use flaked almonds on top whereas the bbc recipe uses ground almonds and is metric.  I omitted the vanilla flavouring to keep the flavours clean and simple.  You could add some almond extract but I didn't because I don't bake often so wouldn't use much.

The best thing about using the almond milk is that people who don't eat soya can eat these muffins!

Makes 12 Muffins 

Ingredients:

300g self raising flour
100g golden granulated sugar
1tsp baking powder
1 pinch of salt
50g ground almonds
200g cherries (leave 6 whole or 12 halves to one side) chopped

175ml almond milk
125 corn oil
1 egg
50g flaked almonds
(6 cherries you left to one side)

Don't forget the muffin cases!

Method:

I just bought 100g flaked almonds and had a mini workout with the pestle and mortar.










1. Sieve the flour into a bowl.  Add baking powder, sugar, salt and 50g ground almonds and stir thoroughly.

2. In a mixing jug, pour in the milk and oil.  In a small bowl, break the egg and whisk.  Add egg to jug mixture.

3. Add the chopped cherries to the flour mixture.

4. Preheat fan oven 170.

Pour the liquid into the flour bowl.

5.

Spoon mixture into cases

6.

Top with flaked almonds and a halved cherry.

7.

Bake for 20-25mins.

8.

Delicious!

Review:

These looked amazing!  The cherry on top had baked to a chewy toffee.  It wasn't unpleasant but I might put the cherry on after the muffins have baked.  The toasted almonds had a lovely taste and texture.  The muffin was very crumbly on the bottom.  I think this may be due to the small egg.  I will put more liquid in next time.  They were very delicately flavoured.  My mother really enjoyed these and said they weren't too sweet.  My favourite bits were the chopped cherries and the toasted almond flakes on top.  These are really simple to make but look ever so special.  They also freeze well.

There isn't much washing up to do either!