Cherry Bread in the Bread Machine
Last Updated February 3, 2022 – Originally Posted February 10, 2010
Cherry bread has a cake-like texture and a great taste. Don’t even get me started about the aroma as the bread bakes or toasts. Lovely!!
This bread is great any time, but especially nice for special meals or holidays. For example, this would make a lovely treat for your family on Valentine’s Day.
Special Ingredients
This recipe contains cherry preserves and almond extract. Almond extract is easy to get, but I had a heck of a time finding cherry preserves.
Hopefully, you’ll have an easier time finding the preserves than I did. I looked for it at numerous stores and finally found some at Trader Joe’s.
Making Cherry Bread
This makes a two-pound loaf of bread. Use the basic setting with the light crust option.
Follow the instructions that came with your bread machine in terms of which ingredients to put in the machine first. With my Zo, I add the liquids first.
Because preserves can be difficult to measure, I started by adding 1/2 cup of water into a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Then I scooped in the preserves until the level in the cup reached the 1-cup mark.
I also added the egg to the measuring cup and gave everything a good stir. I went through the same process with my apricot bread recipe and here’s how it looked when I made that.
Note that this level is above the 1-cup mark because of the egg, as well as my spoon.
Continue adding ingredients to the bread pan.
Check the dough after five or ten minutes of kneading. This is especially important with this recipe because different preserves have different consistencies. So pop the top of the bread machine and see how the dough is doing. It should be a smooth-ish, round ball.
If the dough is too dry add liquid a teaspoon at a time until it looks right. If it looks too wet, add flour a tablespoon at a time until it looks right.
Note that the loaf of bread won’t be as large as some others. It’ll come out a little small as compared with other two-pound loaves.
Cherry Bread – Bread Machine Recipe
This makes a two-pound loaf. Use the white bread or basic setting with the crust set to light.
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup cherry preserves
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 1/2 cups bread flour
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast