It has been a long since I’ve had bread. Yes, this lockdown and ‘stay home, stay safe’ life we are leading now is making us appreciate the simple things in life that we took for granted.

So I found an easy way to solve this problem and it satisfies cake cravings too — easy strawberry bread!

Easy breads are like regular breads, except that they are easier to make — I know, this was obvious in the name. On a serious note, easy breads use baking powder or baking soda instead of yeast in traditional bread recipes, and there is no ‘keep it aside to let it raise’ kind of step involved. Everything is just mixed and popped into the oven!

Ingredients

• 2 cups strawberries, fresh or frozen

• 1 egg

• 2 cups flour

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1cup granulated sugar

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil

• 1 cup buttermilk

Method

Preheat an oven at 200 degrees Centigrade.

The method of baking quick bread is to first combine the dry ingredients like flour, salt and baking soda in one bowl and the wet ingredients like eggs, oil, vanilla extract and buttermilk in a separate bowl.

Now add the wet ingredients into the bowl with dry ones, and mix with a hand beater or an electric one. Add the strawberries, but leave about a tablespoon to be added on top later, and lightly mix with a spoon or spatula.

Grease a loaf pan, after which you can dust it lightly with a bit of flour so that the bread gets removed easily after baking, and pour in the batter. Top with the remaining strawberry chunks and whatever juice remains. Ask an adult to put it in the oven for you as ovens are too hot for kids to handle.

Bake for about 50-60 minutes. After about 40 minutes or so, you can bring the temperature down a bit to 180 degrees C. Use a clean knife to check if it is done by inserting it in the middle, when it comes out clean, the bread is ready!

Note:

You can use both fresh and frozen strawberries. We had some frozen ones, which were just washed and frozen airtight, so I used those. But as the frozen ones give out a lot of moisture, so I cut them up when they were a little soft, and just before adding to the batter, I scooped the fleshy part out with a spoon into another bowl, leaving as much moisture as possible. Now add about a tablespoon of flour and lightly mixed them.

Too much moisture makes the bread soggy around the strawberry pieces, and I added the flour to coat the fruit so that the pieces don’t all sink into the bottom when baking.

Buttermilk is used here as it works well with baking soda and the bread rises well. You don’t have to buy buttermilk as it is very easy to make at home.

Buttermilk:

You can make it by using either white vinegar or lemon juice.

• 1 cup buttermilk = 1 tablespoon white vinegar + 1 cup milk.

• 1 cup buttermilk = 1 tablespoon lemon juice + 1 cup milk.

Method:

Add either white vinegar or lemon juice into one cup of milk and stir gently, and leave for at least 10 minutes.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 25th, 2020