Weekend Cooking: Strawberry Bread

Its been a looooong time since I posted anything on this blog.... the reason being my new business venture - Madras Canteen, a home-based catering  service which specializes in Indian cuisine; and hey, what better way to get back into blogging action than to post a weekend cooking recipe for Strawberry Bread!!! 

I had bought a big bag of fresh strawberries last week and was looking around the internet for easy baking recipes and this is the result of that search.... a light, moist and yummy bread!!!

Preparation Time: 10 minutes            

Cooking Time: 45 minutes

Serves: 12 slices ( 1 Loaf Pan)

Wet Ingredients:

Fresh Strawberries, sliced or diced - 1 & 1/2 Cups
Eggs, beaten - 2
Cooking Oil - 1/2 Cup
Pure Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp

Dry Ingredients:
All-purpose flour - 1 & 1/2 Cups + 2 tbsp
Granulated Sugar - 1 Cup
Cinnamon Powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp 
Walnuts, chopped coarsely -  a fistful

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. 
   
2. In a small bowl, sprinkle the diced strawberries with 2 tbsp of sugar and set aside to macerate.
3. Meanwhile, mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
4. Now blend in the beaten eggs, oil and vanilla essence into the macerated strawberries. (I just crushed the strawberries coarsely with my hand before I added in the remaining wet ingredients 'coz I like to have small bite-size chunks of strawberries in my bread)
   
5. Then slowly fold in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients till you form a thick batter. 
6.  Stir in the walnut pieces into the batter.
7. Pour the batter into the loaf pan.
8. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 
9. Allow the pan to cool on wire rack/kitchen counter for 10 minutes. 
10. Turn the loaf out, and cool completely.
11. Serve a slice of bread with a dollop of whipped cream and some fresh strawberries ...

(The strawberry bread tastes equally good when had warm or cold but I personally like to have  it warm.)

This recipe is part of the Weekend Cooking meme hosted by Beth Fish which is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.