Cherry Pie Tray Bake

The humble tray bake. I love all tray bakes. This one is special though. In fact, this one is particularly special. I love Cherry Pie, and Cherry Bakewells, and of course cake, so why not combine them! This is great on it's own, warmed with custard, or a big blob of ice cream!

Ingredients
350g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
300g light brown sugar
250g unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 pouch of Natures Finest Morello Cherry Fruit Filling (or 300g cherry jam)
Icing sugar, made with almond extract and water, to glaze (optional)


First thing is first, the filing for this gorgeous traybake. This is what I used, and I got it from my local Sainsburys Supermarket, down the aisle with the tinned fruit.

Now, I used a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment to make this mix, however you could just use a bowl and whisk or wooden spoon, and it would do exactly the same job. 

First, you need to get pop your oven on, 180C, 160C fan, or Gas Mark 4, and grease a 9x13 inch pan with butter, line with parchment paper at the bottom, grease this and coat the inside of the pan with a little bit of flour. Like so: 

Now cream together your butter and sugar until light and fluffy, this should take a few minutes. Then add your eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the pan between additions. Now add your vanilla and almond extracts, and then your flour, baking powder and salt. Mix this all together until everything is just combined. 

It should be thicker than a cake mix, but not a dough. 

Next, tip 2/3 of the dough into your prepared pan and press into an even layer. I used a spatula for this, and it should look something like this:

Now pop your fruit filling on top of this, and spread it evenly over your mix. Now, using a teaspoon, dollop spoonfuls of the remaining mix on top of the fruit filling. It may, or it may not, resemble this:

All you need to do now is pop it in the oven for approx 40 minutes, or until golden. You can leave this to cool in the tin, before making a glaze with some icing sugar, water and a touch of almond extract, which you just drizzle over. Now it should (hopefully) look something like this:

Now, all you need to to is slice, and decide how you are going to demolish it! A bake this size cuts into 15 large squares, however if you are making these as bitesize, then you could easily get 30 portions. 

Now put the kettle on, and have a slice!