The Stars and the Cookie Jar

Sweet Bread Dough:

2 teaspoons white sugar
1/2 cup lukewarm water
2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
1 cup milk, scalded and cooled
1 cup all-purpose flour

6 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar
1 cup butter, melted
5 1/2 cups bread flour

Combine first five ingredients in a large bowl. Let rise 30 minutes, until risen and spongy.

Beat eggs, sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Beat in melted butter. Pour into the large bowl with the sponge, and add flour until a slightly sticky dough forms. Knead for ten minutes, and let rise until an indentation made with a fingertip does not 'heal'. Make the filling during the first rise.

Filling:

1 can Comstock cherry pie filling or canned Morello cherries in juice
2 bricks cream cheese
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch salt

Rinse cherries clean of juice or pie-filling goo, drain and set aside.

Beat the eggs into the cream cheese one at a time, followed by the extracts and salt. Taste and correct extracts - for a more commercial flavour, add more vanilla. Refrigerate cream cheese filling until the dough completes its first rise.

In two bundt pans or four coffee cans, layer dough, spoonfuls of filling, and cherries, tucking dough well around the filling and finishing with a layer of dough. Leave at least two inches for the dough to rise. Let the dough rise to just below the rim of the pans, while the oven is preheating.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, then turn down the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking the bread for another 40 minutes. If the tops begin to brown too rapidly, cover with aluminum foil. Remove baked loaves from the pans and cool on a wire rack.