Fresh Strawberry Bread

I never found plums for the plum bread recipe I wanted to try, so, I looked around my refrigerator at what other fruits might work and that’s when I saw them…strawberries! I don’t think I’ve ever had strawberry bread, but I thought, why not? Strawberries are good…bread is good…should work out okay! So, I grabbed my strawberries and other yummy ingredients and decided to give it a try.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Bread

adapted from here.

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
• 1/2 cup buttermilk*
• 1 1/2 cups strawberries, chopped

* I didn’t have buttermilk but there are a couple ways you can substitute for buttermilk in a recipe. One way I found was mixing 1 tbsp. white vinegar in a measuring cup, then filling the rest of the cup with milk until it hits the 1 cup line. I let that sit for about 10 minutes, then used the amount the recipe called for, 1/2 cup.

Since I don’t have my stand mixer here, I decided to microwave the butter and cream cheese first in order to mix them properly. Otherwise, it might have taken all day..

I swear the only reason there are fingerprints in this picture was because I couldn’t tell how soft they were! I haven’t sunk that low to the point where I eat plain butter! Not yet at least.

Next, I mixed the butter, cream cheese, and sugar together.

Then I added 1 egg at at time, then the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, I mixed together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. I also started my “buttermilk” substitution and let that sit for about 10 minutes.

While the buttermilk was sitting, I slowly blended the flour mixture into the butter mixture. I went slow since I didn’t have my electric mixer. This was a great mid day arm workout for me!

This dough gets very thick so mixing it becomes a little challenging! The challenge is definitely worth it in the end though.. 🙂

Once all the flour was mixed in, I added the buttermilk and stirred until completely combined.  Try not to over-stir  (if that makes sense).

Finally it was time to add the strawberries! I folded the strawberries in very carefully, trying not to rip them apart. I don’t have all the correct baking tools on hand so I used a fork!

I set the oven to bake at 350 degrees and greased and floured a 9×5 loaf pan. I baked the bread for about 50 minutes.

It came out looking and smelling amazing!

I had a slice for breakfast and added a couple more strawberries to top it off!

This is really delicious! It’s kind of a cross between cake and bread. It’s really light and perfectly sweet: a great summer bread! I still want to try plum bread but this was a good substitute in the mean time!

We had a fun first weekend here in Cleveland. We went over to the West Side Market (which was awesome, minus the rain), went mushroom hunting, and I tried a Monte Cristo sandwich for the first time (pretty intense). It was a great culinary weekend! I’ll update you more on our adventures later today! Happy Monday!