Strawberry Bread

I’m not one to waste fresh Tennessee strawberries on something that requires them to be consumed any way but raw and mostly naked, but I got a couple of quarts that were good but not great. So I thought, “Why not try something baked?” with these berries. I wasn’t feeling ambitious enough for a cake (mmm…strawberry cake…) so I remembered getting an email with a recipe for strawberry bread in it. Couldn’t find the email, so I just poked around the internet a bit and (once again) came up with my own from the best of other recipes. Because I had a lot of strawberries to use and I really wanted a strong strawberry flavor.

Strawberry Bread
Yields 2 9 x 5 inch loaves

2 cups fresh strawberries sliced
2 cups pureed strawberries
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cups vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Grease and flour two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans.

Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in large bowl and blend well with a fork. Place strawberries in a medium size bowl and blend in oil, eggs and vanilla. Add the strawberry mixture to the flour mixture, blending until dry ingredients are just moistened. Divide batter equally into pans and bake for one hour or until done (insert a toothpick; if it comes out clean, it‘s done). Let cool in pans for about 10 minutes and remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Well? This bread is MOIST. Probably too moist. And not quite strawberry-y enough for me. I suppose I should have made strawberry cake to achieve that level of strawberryness. But the bread is good. I’m thinking though that instead of pureed strawberries, a strawberry jam might be better. About 8 ounces instead of 16 (and increase the oil if the batter’s not loose enough). However, strawberry season is just about over here, so I suppose I’ll have to wait until next year to try it out. I'm also thinking some lemon in here somewhere would brighten it and add a nice tang. Hrm.