Chocolate Cherry Loaf

I was recently contacted by Whole Soy about submitting a couple recipes for their website, which I was more than happy to do.  I love coming up with new recipe ideas or putting a new spin on old ones.  And of course I love an excuse to have to test out some cake!

Since the recipes will appear either this or next week, I wanted to try to tie them in with the season.  This chocolate cherry bread is easy to make, super chocolate-y and not too sweet.  It would make a great gift, or you could just keep it all to yourself and enjoy it for breakfast, dessert or an afternoon snack.

Chocolate Cherry Bread

1 1/2 cups organic unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup Whole Soy cherry yogurt

1/2 cup vanilla (or plain) soy milk

1/2 cup canola oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 10-oz bag frozen cherries (or fresh cherries), chopped if you prefer smaller pieces

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan (or use a paper-loaf pan).

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.  Stir in the sugar.  Add the yogurt, non-dairy milk, oil and extracts, and stir to combine.  Fold in the cherries until no streaks of flour remain.

Transfer the batter to your prepared loaf pan, and bake for about 60 minutes (or until a cake tester comes out clean), rotating the pan halfway through baking.  Cool completely before cutting.

Notes: You could make a Chocolate Raspberry bread by omitting the almond extract, substituting raspberries for the cherries and raspberry yogurt instead of cherry.  This can also be baked in muffin tins – just reduce the baking time to about 20 minutes.