Strawberry Bread

Here is my mother's famous recipe for Strawberry Bread.

Dry Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour (whole wheat works if you prefer)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon

 Wet Ingredients:

• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup) fully softened
• ½ cup applesauce
• 1 ¼ cups chopped pecans
• 2 10 oz packages frozen whole strawberries

 

1. Thaw frozen strawberries, keeping all strawberry juice. Reserve 3 Tablespoons strawberry juice for glaze (see below).

 

2. Grease and flour loaf pans (I recommend lining the pans with waxed paper.) Recipe makes 2 large loaf pans (8 x 4), 3 medium, or 6 mini loaves. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

3. Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and add beaten eggs, very soft butter, and applesauce. Mix thoroughly, dough will be thick. Smash the defrosted strawberries a bit, and add them, and the pecans (be sure to include the remaining strawberry juice after reserving amount in step 1) and mix carefully and thoroughly to combine. Try to coat all the strawberries with the batter.

 

4. Pour batter evenly into prepared loaf pans. Bake 40-70 minutes, depending on loaf size and whenever toothpick inserted comes out clean.

 

Glaze Ingredients:

• 1 cup powdered sugar (or more to thicken)
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice (or more to taste)
• 3 Tablespoons strawberry juice (previously reserved in step 1).

 5. Mix sugar, lemon, and strawberry juice. Drizzle/pour over tops and sides of bread loaves while still hot from the oven. (I put a sheet of wax paper under my cooling rack to catch the drips. Allow glaze to harden and cool completely before serving or freezing.