Strawberry Bread

I love trying new recipes, especially the sweet kind!  I tried this new recipe last weekend and it was delicious plain, with butter, with cream cheese and even with ice cream!

The recipe is Strawberry Bread from the Everyday Food magazine, July/August 2004 issue.  

Pic from Martha's website

This recipe can be found at Martha Stewart's website, but I have also included here:

Strawberry Bread

Yields: 1 loaf that serves 8

Calories: 276 per slice

• 5 tbs plus 1 tsp unsalted butter @ room temperature (plus more for greasing the pan)
• 1 pint strawberries, rinsed, hulled & quartered
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (can alternately use gluten free flour blend)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/3 cup water (might not be needed, see ** note at end of recipe)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8 x 4 inch loaf pan; set aside.
2. Using a fork, mash the strawberries until they are soft.
3. In a small saucepan, place the mashed strawberries and bring to a boil over med-high heat.  Cook, stirring for 1 min.  Take off heat and set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, baking powder & salt; set aside.
5. In a separate large mixing bowl with an electric mixer, cream together the butter, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. *
6. Add flour mixture alternately with 1/3 cup water **, beginning and ending with the flour.
7. Fold in the cooked strawberries.
8. Pour/scrape batter into prepared loaf pan, smoothing the top if necessary.
9. Bake until toothpick in center comes out clean, about 45-60 min.  If it needs longer than 45 min, lightly tent aluminum foil over pan to prevent the bread from browning too much.
10. Remove from oven and place pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 min.
11. Run a knife around the edges to loosen, then invert on the rack.  Flip back over and cool completely.

Note *:  I had brought all ingredients to room temperature prior to starting and my creamed butter mix was not light and fluffy but a well blended slurry.

Note**: Since my butter blend was like a slurry and my strawberries contained some liquid too, I only added a scant amount of water.  Once the flour mix was added, it was still quite liquidy and not that batter-like.

Based on the Notes above, I really did not think this bread was going to work out.  I had also used a gluten free flour blend for one and normal flour for my second one and they both had the same liquidy consistency, but after 45 min, they were both done and came out great!

The white pan is the gluten-free version (bread did not rise) and the clear pan is the normal version: perfect.

When I flipped the gluten-free one over, there was a concentrated corner of strawberries, so the corner broke off.  I did not mind, that was my excuse to try it before it was cooled!  Yummy!

I ate this bread with ice cream one night in a brownie sundae fashion and it was so good.  I shared this with another gluten-free pal at work and she loved it too.

Let me know how you like it!  Bon Appetit!