Oh my goodness, I didn't realize how much food my parents bring me from around the country until I started incorporating it into my blogging recipes. Any of you who know about cherries, probably know about the summer cherry harvest in Wisconsin. My parents brought me cherries from Door County and I really pondered what recipe would be worthy of such delicious cherries. Well, here it is folks. This tastes like something you would savor at an adorable bed + breakfast somewhere with rolling hills and sweet people. After pulling it out of the oven, I sent half of the coffeecake home with my mom this week. Later that same night, my phone was literally blowing up at 10:30 PM and it actually crossed my mind that someone had died. No, thank goodness, it was just my dad calling to rave about this coffeecake he had just tasted.
The cherries are concentrated to the middle of the cake, making it have a moist filling in between a light almond flavored crunchy top and bottom.
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 c. sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup greek yogurt
- 1 tsp. lemon zest (optional)
- 1/2 21-ounce can cherry pie filling (I used Door County, WI cherries)
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced almonds
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 10-inch-diameter spring form or bundt pan. Beat sugar and butter in large bowl until light. Add eggs, vanilla extract and almond extract and beat well. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Mix half of dry ingredients into butter mixture. Mix in yogurt, then remaining dry ingredients.
Pour 2/3 of batter (about 2 cups) into prepared pan. Drop pie filling by tablespoons evenly over batter. Drop remaining batter by spoonfuls over pie filling. Using back of spoon, carefully spread batter over filling. Sprinkle with almonds. Bake until tester inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 1 hour 5 minutes. Cool in pan on rack. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover with foil and store at room temperature.) Cut around sides of pan. Remove pan.
