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Last weekend I had a couple of brown banana’s sitting on my windowsill that were just screaming to be made into a tasty baked treat. I was also feeling generous and wanted to make something especially for James. Luckily I have pretty well stocked cupboards full of random things, and on inspection I found that I had some natural glace cherries and some ground almonds. One of James favourite flavour combos are cherries and almond and hence the following recipe was born!

Cherry Almond Muffins (vegan, makes 12 muffins)

• 2 medium ripe bananas mashed
• 1/4 cup of applesauce / baby food (I used a little pot of apple and mango baby food)
• 1/4 cup of rapeseed oil
• 1/2 cup of sugar (I used xylitol)
• 2 tbsp agave syrup
• 1/2 tsp of almond extract
• 1/2 cup of spelt / whole wheat flour
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup ground almonds / almond flour
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 cup of fresh pitted cherries or glacé cherries
• Flaked almonds to decorate

Pre heat the oven to 180c / 350F and line a muffin tin with muffin liners.  Mash the bananas and combine with the applesauce / baby food, oil, sugar, agave and almond extract. Add the flours, ground almonds and baking soda and mix with the wet ingredients. Add the cherries and fold into the batter. Spoon the mixture into the muffin liners filling them 3/4 full. Top with flaked almonds if desired. Bake for 20 minutes until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

These turned out very nice indeed! James loved them, and the few that were leftover went down very well with my guests at my Jubilee party, in fact my friends were going back for seconds!

These turned out lovely and light and moist with a distinct almond flavour and sweetness from the cherries. If you don’t want them to taste super almondy then reduce the almond extract. I also used a mix of spelt flour and plain flour in these to make them lighter, you could make them with all wholemeal or all plain depending on your preference. If you really wanted to up the health factor with these, you could try replacing some of the flour with oat flour – just oats blended in a food processor until they become a fine meal.

I will definitely be making these again soon, they would taste fantastic made with fresh cherries which are so in season right now. They would also work very well with fresh raspberries or any fresh berries. Holy yum!

What’s your favourite flavour combo? Do you treat your partner / friends and family to their favourite foods? What are there favourites?