Wild Cherry and Almond Muffin Recipe

These delicious muffins are packed with fresh, wild cherries and ground almonds, and finished on top with flaked almonds for a delicious crunch.

Is there a greater flavour combination than Cherry and Almond? If I pop into a bakery or coffee shop its the first thing I look for is either a cherry flavour muffin or cake, so I thought it was time to create a recipe of my own to make use of the deliciously sweet wild Cherries which are in season right now.

Peak Cherry season here in Northumberland can be as early as the end of June, or as late as the middle of July, they are very much effected by the weather, and its just a case of regularly checking the trees and taste testing the fruit for sweetness. One they begin to darken from bright red to dark, they don't hang around long, so be sure to act quickly. They naturally begin to drop from the trees, but there are plenty of keen-eyed Wood Pigeons who enjoy this late summer feast as much as we do!

So long as the fruits are soft, they are good too eat, but be sure to try them first to make sure they are sweet in flavour, as many trees only produce sour tasting fruits and its better to find this out before gathering a whole basket full!

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The Cherry and Almond flavour combination is a true British favourite that has been used for centuries. It is most famously associated with the village of Bakewell in Derbyshire, where the Cherry Bakewell tart is said to have originated in the 1820s after a baking mishap, but their joint history can be traced back even further, with recipes combining Cherries and Almonds found in one of England's earliest surviving cookbooks, The Forme of Cury which was published in 1390.

Both Cherries and Almonds belong to the same plant family, Prunus or Plum, and both contain the chemical compound benzaldehyde, which ultimately means they work very well together in terms of flavour. And while you are incredibly unlikely to stumble across any Almond trees growing wild in the UK, thankfully we do have an abundance of Wild Cherry trees, so once you have safely identified the fruits as Cherries, you won't be in short supply during their peak season.

Cherry trees are very common throughout the UK and often planted ornamentally in cities and towns, parks and greenspaces, so they shouldn't be too difficult to find. They are commonly found in woodlands and hedgerows too. Their distincitve bark is reddish-brown, with horizontal stripes running around the trunk. It often has a very obvious sheen. In Spring and Summer Cherry leaves are bright green, with a prominent mid-vein running through the centre. They are oval in shape, with serrated edges and are very smooth.

In Spring, our native Wild Cherries produce delicate white blossoms, which later develop into fruits. The fruits start out as small, green and hard but ripen to dark red, with a single, hard stone in the centre. When ripe the fruits are soft and juicy, and often just as sweet as cultivated varieties. Cherries closely resemble other members of the Prunus family, such as Plums, Damsons and Sloes, all of which have their own unique identification features and ripen at different times in the year, and are all perfectly safe to eat. Its closet toxic lookalike is possibly the Cherry Laurel so be sure to familiarise yourself with its identification features to avoid any unpleasant mistakes.

Once gathered, the fruits will last for a few days when stored in the fridge, but they can also be frozen for future use. This particular recipe calls for approximately 200g of fresh, de-stoned cherries, but you can use slightly more or slightly less depending on your prefrence. The cherries should be halved before adding to the mixture, and I would recommend taking the added step of coating them in flour before mixing them in to stop them sinking to the bottom.

The muffins are topped with flaked almonds for added crunch, but if nuts aren't an option for you, both the flaked and ground almonds can be left out, and replaced with a little extra flour instead. The muffins won't have that classic almond flavour, but they will still be sweet and delicious and packed full of fruit!

SInce crafting this recipe, my children have asked for multiple batches, so its a big hit with them, and their minds are already whirring with other muffin ideas - some wild, others not so much! But it'sa simple recipe, made with common baking essentials, and I know I'll be coming back to it time and time again.

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Wild Cherry and Almond Muffins

Ingredients

Makes 9 muffins

150-200g cherries, pitted and halved

250g plain flour

50g ground almonds

150g brown sugar

2tsp baking powder

pinch salt

70ml sunflower oil

220ml milk

1tsp almond extract

Flaked almonds to add to the top of each muffin.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180℃ and prepare a muffin tray by lining with muffin cases.

2. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl.

3. In a separate bowl mix together the sunflower oil and light brown sugar. Then add the almond extract along with the milk and whisk to combine.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mix and whisk until combined.

5. Coat the cherries in a light sprinkling of flour. This will stop them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins once baked. Add the cherries to the wet mixture and stir it lightly to bring it altogether. Add a few flaked almonds to the top of each muffin.

6. Pour into the prepared muffin cases and bake for 25 minutes.

7. Let it cool slightly before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.