I have always loved dried cherries. Most of them have a little sugar though. You can find them, and cranberries, in apple juice now. But, finally, I saw that nuts.com had tart cherries with no added ingredients at all. We love them. We make a pucker-face when we start on them though, so be forewarned.
Anyway, I wanted to make a "paleo cherry bread" out of them, but it turned out more like bars - really good bars!
The first thing I did was set out 4 eggs so they would be room temperature. ( If you don't do this, the eggs will turn your melted coconut oil into a solid again.....)
I put the following items in a mixing bowl:
1 1/2 cups almond flour
2 TBSP coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
I stirred this up, then added:
1 cup unsweetened organic tart cherries
1/2 cup goji berries (also from nuts.com)
1/2 cup pecan pieces
1 cup walnut pieces
I stirred that up.
I put the wet ingredients into the 2-cup measure I'd used to measure the almond flour so I could stir it all up before adding into the dry ingredients:
2 TBSP coconut oil, melted
1 TBSP maple syrup ( you may want 2 TBSP, or honey, or agave nectar)
4 eggs ( room temperature)
I stirred these wet ingredients with a fork and then poured it into the dry ingredients and stirred it all up with a wooden spoon.
I prepared 2 small pans by rubbing coconut oil on them. (You could use one 8x8 pan for thicker bars, or a 9x12 for thinner bars if you don't have the 2 little pans like mine.)
I spread them out and pushed down on them a little with the back of the wooden spoon and put them into a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. I took them out and put them on a rack to cool.
I hope you try them. You can tweak the kinds of nuts as long as you have the same amount - the same thing goes for the fruit - you might want to substitute some raisins or cranberries, but watch out for hidden sugar. Sugar is the devil.
