Cherry and almond tray bake

It's national baking day, so I had to bake, and looking at my books it was clear which one I had to choose a recipe from, after all Mary Berry is the queen of baking!

I decided on a traybake, simple, uncomplicated, quick and delicious. The traybake I decided on was cherry and almond, a classic flavour combination.

 Now I did make a few tweaks, normally I would not tweak Mary's recipes but I am on a budget at the moment (3 weddings to go to in 1 month is expensive!) so I used what I had in the cupboards and did not buy extras apart from the cherries. I think Mary would approve of my thrifty-ness. 

Cherry and almond traybake

225g glacé cherries, my pack was 200g, I used 200g.

225g soft butter

225g caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla paste or extract

Tsp almond extract

4 eggs

50g ground almonds

250g self raising flour

Tablespoon of milk

Flaked almonds for topping, I had none but chopped up a few whole almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C FAN, and grease and line a traybake tin.

Chop the cherries into quarters, rinse well with cold water before draining and drying on kitchen paper (or clean tea towel), set aside.

Add all the other ingredients to a bowl except the almonds and mix for a minute until well combined, fold through the cherries.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and level the top. Scatter over the almonds. Bake in a preheated oven for 40 minutes until golden and beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin.

Yum, a classic flavour combination and a delicious cake, happy world baking day!