Strawberry 🍓 Bread

Strawberry Bread

★★★★★

Breads, Fruit,

Cook Time: 50 minutesServings: Prep time 10 minutesSource: tastesoflizzyt.com

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE BREAD:

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup oil

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder** (see notes)

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups diced strawberries

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

FOR THE GLAZE:

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons melted butter

1/3 cup finely diced strawberries

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or almond extract

1-2 tablespoons heavy cream or milk** (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, milk, oil, egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.

In a small bowl, toss together the strawberries and the 2 tablespoons of flour to coat the strawberries. Fold the floured strawberries gently into the batter.

Pour the bread batter into a greased 9″x5″ bread pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center of the bread should come out clean. Allow the bread to cool for 10 minutes, then remove the bread to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the glaze, combine the powdered sugar, melted butter, diced strawberries and extract in a small bowl. Mix until it is smooth.

Once the bread is cool, spread the glaze on top of the bread. Slice and serve.

NOTES

*I often add an extra teaspoon of vanilla or almond extract to the bread batter (along with the wet ingredients) for an extra boost of flavor. I do this especially if I’m not putting the glaze on top. The bread has the most flavor when you add the strawberry glaze!

*We have added up to 2 ½ cups of diced strawberries to the batter. The bread stays together the best when you use about 2 cups.

**We like the strawberry bread as written, but if you’d like a higher rise on the bread, reduce the baking powder to 1 teaspoon and add ½ teaspoon of baking soda. This will change the texture slightly, but some like it a little better.

**We didn’t need any milk or cream to make the glaze spreadable, but it may depend on the juiciness of your strawberries. The glaze will be very thick and look like it is not mixing up, but if you keep mixing, it should create a nice creamy pink glaze as shown below. If it doesn’t, add milk or heavy cream 1 tablespoon at a time. The glaze will soften as it sits too since the sugar pulls out juices from the strawberries. Keep this in mind when adding milk and don’t add too much!

***Many people find that they can make half of a recipe of glaze and it is plenty. If you don’t like a lot of glaze, halve the ingredients.

****The calories shown are based on the bread being cut into 10 pieces (and all of the frosting used), with 1 serving being 1 slice of bread. Since different brands of ingredients have different nutritional information, the calories shown are just an estimate.

NUTRITION

Calories: 394kcal | Carbohydrates: 62g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 14g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 25mg | Sodium: 92mg | Potassium: 181mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 40g | Vitamin A: 115IU | Vitamin C: 19.7mg | Calcium: 60mg | Iron: 1.5mg

Strawberry Patch🍓 Decoys

I had a beautiful green ceramic strawberry pot, with 🍓plants that survived from year to year.

my 🍓decoy

I kept it on our front porch and invited guests to help themselves. There wasn’t much fruit as our summers can be brutally hot, but we thoroughly enjoyed its presence.

Well, it broke early last spring ?? and I hastily planted them into an already established raised garden bed. They took off nicely but I had a LOT of competition for the berries. I couldn’t begrudge the tiny bunnies or the squirrels, but the birds have feeders.

More plants, I thought. More plants and there will be enough strawberries to go around. The runners from the original plants obliged me and I have a nice little patch this year.

But then I saw the birds going after the berries that haven’t even begun to ripen. What to do?🤔

And THAT’s when I thought to paint some small pebbles red like strawberries 🍓. Birds don’t like pecking hard things with their beaks. They’ll peck the rocks and not like it very much and leave my soon-to-be ripe berries alone. Right? right??

My strawberry 🍓 patch WITH decoys 😂

Worth a try and if nothing else I had a good deal of fun doing it.

Wish me luck and I’ll keep you posted

Fresh 🍓Strawberry Pie 🥧

Fresh Strawberry Pie

Nothing I like better than to buy a couple flats of strawberries in season, to make my favorite recipes 🍓

Fresh Strawberry Pie
★★★★★
Baked goods, Desserts
Makes 8 servings – source: Cooking Light
INGREDIENTS

Crust:
50 Reduced calorie vanilla wafers
¼ cup butter or stick margarine melted
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
cooking spray
Filling:
2 cups ripe strawberries
½ cup water
⅔ cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
6 cups small ripe strawberries
½ cup frozen reduced calorie whipped topping thawed and divided
(I used fresh whipped cream 🙂
DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven.

To prepare crust, place wafers in a food processor and process until finely ground. Add butter, 2 tablespoons sugar, and orange rind, and pulse 10 times or just until wafers are moist. Press into bottom and up sides of a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, cool on a wire rack.

To prepare filling, mash 2 cups strawberries with a potato masher. Combine mashed strawberries and water in a small saucepan; bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Press the strawberry mixture through a sieve into a bowl, and reserve 1 cup strawberry liquid (add enough water to measure 1 cup, if necessary). Discard pulp.Combine 2/3 cup sugar and cornstarch in a pan; add strawberry liquid, stirring well with a whisk.

Bring to a boil; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Reduce heat, and cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in lemon juice.

Arrange a layer of small strawberries, stem sides down, in the crust. Spoon about one-third of sauce over the strawberries. Arrange the remaining strawberries on top, spooning the remaining sauce over the strawberries.

Chill for at least 3 hours.

Serve with whipped topping. Yield: 8 servings (serving size: 1 wedge and 1 tablespoon whipped topping).

Calories 285 (27% from fat); Fat 8.5 grams (sat 4.6g, mono 2.5g, poly 0.9g); protein 1.9 g; Carb 52.2g; Fiber 3.5g; chol 16mg; iron 1.2mg; sodium 146mg; Calc 42mg