I love a nice fruit bread during the holidays. It’s a sweet bread made with candied cherries, citrus peel and sometimes currents or raisins. My favourite part is the cherries, and I had quite a bit of cherries left over from making Cherry Chocolate Kiss Cookies, so I left out the other stuff and just made cherry bread. I also added about a teaspoon of cinnamon into the sweet dough to give it more flavour. The bread smelled so good when I pulled it out of the oven that I couldn’t wait for it to cool down before cutting into it (this is why the loaf looks a little ragged in the photo). There’s nothing like hot bread fresh out of the oven, especially when it’s sweet cherry bread. It’s also great when toasted and smeared with butter. Sometimes I like to add a little honey or jam on it too for a treat. It freezes well too, so I froze one loaf for later and have been enjoying the other loaf pretty much entirely on my own because the rest of my family doesn’t seem to share my affinity for bread and yeasty carbs in general. They’re more interested in the Christmas cookies and chocolates. The good thing about this bread is that it’s relatively low in fat and sugar (as long as you don’t add a ton of butter and jam or honey), so it’s not a bad choice as far as holiday treats go.

2/3 cup chopped candied cherries

Punch down the prepared dough and turn out onto lightly floured surface. Knead cherries into the dough, adding more flour if dough becomes sticky. Divide into two equal portions, roll them into balls and cover with plastic wrap to rest for about 15 mintues.