Strawberry Bread

My favorite part of summer is eating fresh berries with a splash of cream. This bread can be served with vanilla ice cream for dessert, or could be sliced and used in place of plain bread for delicious french toast.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups sliced fresh strawberries (this is roughly approximate to 1 pint - a lot of times I throw in a few extras)
1 cup granulated white sugar, divided
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 tsp Vietnamese Cassia cinnamon. If using "regular" cinnamon, use a full tsp.
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 stick of melted butter (not too hot! - just barely melted)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease and flour or use non-stick cooking spray inside a standard size loaf pan. Rinse, core and slice the strawberries. A bonus hint for the day - a tomato corer works wonders for coring strawberries. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the sugar. In a large mixing bowl, blend together the remaining sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs until just foamy, add the vanilla and melted butter. Stir in the strawberries. Combine the two mixtures, blending until the dry ingredients are just moistened through. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick of piece of uncooked spaghetti inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes before removing the bread from the pan.

The first time I tried this recipe (largely adopted from one we picked up while perusing Penzeys Spices - www.penzeys.com) I wasn't so sure about the cinnamon and strawberry combination, but after we ate the loaf we agreed it was heavenly. I buy my cassia cinnamon from Penzeys, and while it's spicier and more intense than regular cinnamon the taste is incredible.

There are a few things that I think one needs to spend money on to buy quality kitchenware namely... good properly sharpened knives, good cookware, and good spices. Once you've used good quality items in these categories (it took me 25 years before I did for some of them!), you'll never go back to using just any old thing.

After the requisite cooling time, I took the bread from the oven and ate a piece with Garofalo burro di buffala - a pale gold butter made from buffalo milk and Ficoco, a fig and cocoa spread from Croatia.

Banana Split Bread

My first "real" job aside from babysitting was as a drink/ice cream girl at Sonic the summer I turned 14. One of the favorite items on the menu for customers during the sweltering Texas summers was a banana split.

This quick bread is a twist on those flavors strongly reminiscent of many childhood afternoons. It's delicious warm out of the oven, but would be equally good at room temperature. I imagine the tastes would be greatly enhanced with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream on the side. If there was a way for me to buy Bluebell ice cream up here - sigh... that would be dangerous.



Ingredients

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup crema Mexicana or sour cream (you can use a low-fat version if you want)

1/4 cup fat-free milk
1 teaspoon Mexican vanilla. (I always use Mexican vanilla in baking. Trust me, once you've used it, you won't ever use artificial vanilla flavor willingly again)

2/3 cup mashed red bananas (about 3 red bananas. Look for them in the produce section, and pick ones that have reddish/purple skin. They have slightly pink flesh and almost a raspberry laced flavor). You can use the "normal" Cavendish banana, but if you do, you'll only need about 2-3 medium bananas, and the flavor will be a little less intense.

8 maraschino cherries, drained and chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate pieces
1/2 cup sliced fresh ripe strawberries
Nonstick cooking spray or butter - to grease inside of pan

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat the bottom and sides of a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Make a well in center of flour mixture; set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine crema, milk, and egg. Stir in mashed banana and vanilla.
Add crema mixture all at once to flour mixture; stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy). Fold in chopped cherries, pecans, strawberries and chocolate chips.
Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove bread from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. Makes 16 slices.