
The week of spring break is coming to an end soon, and I'm going to miss having my kids with me 24/7. So far, we had braved the crazy crowd at the zoo, the ski slopes and the play park when the weather was good. And on snowing/rainy days, they played with the slides, jumped on the bouncers (both were in the basement), did straw painting and finger painting (thank goodness for washable paint, but what a fun mess we had!) and made cupcakes. We also did puzzles and played with our fluff on fb alot! It is getting to be so much fun as they grow older and we can do more crafts and stuff together. :)
So today Hubs wanted a coffee cake for dessert, and I thought of this recipe. Had made it once in the pass, and remembered that he like it as it was not too sweet, and I increased the amount of almond extract this time around. The kids helped me measure the flour into the bowl and onto me, but they did a great job ploping the little cherries into the batter before it went into the oven.
Tried this recipe from Bon Appetit and I used self-raising flour and increased the almond extract.
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup light sour cream
1 21-ounce can cherry pie filling

Heat oven to 350F.
Butter 10-inch-diameter springform pan. Beat sugar and butter in large bowl until light. Add eggs, vanilla extract and almond extract and beat well. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Mix half of dry ingredients into butter mixture. Mix in sour cream, 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. 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.
Note: It's becoming a favorite of Hubs, and it's not bad, but I'm not happy with the cherries, and am still searching for a better almond coffee cake recipe.