It's a charity bake sale in work tomorrow, so I thought I'd use a couple of punnets of strawberries that were sitting in our fridge to try out my new fascination with fruity mini loaves (see my recent experiments with mango bread and peach bread). I doubled the quantities of those recipes, so this makes 2 normal loaf cakes or 13 mini loaves. Hazelnuts seemed like a nice combination with strawberries, but I think this would be lovely with pecans or macadamia nuts too. The strawberry jam glaze made them look deliciously shiny and tempting. These are really sweet!
2 x 400g punnets of strawberries
2 tbsp caster sugar
4 fl. Oz. / 8 tbsp walnut oil
14 oz caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1 lb. self-raising flour
4 oz ground almonds
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
3 oz hazelnuts, chopped
A good sprinkle of vanilla sugar
For the glaze
2 tbsp strawberry jam
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. If using mini loaf cases, arrange on a baking tin. If using larger loaf tins, grease and line with baking paper.
- To make a puree, hull 1 punnet of strawberries and blitz in a blender.
- Hull and dice the other punnet of strawberries, place in a bowl and sprinkle with 2 tbsp sugar. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix together the strawberry purée, oil, caster sugar, almond and vanilla extract and beat well.
- Sift the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt into the strawberry/ oil mixture, beating to combine well.
- Fold in the chopped hazelnuts and diced strawberries, and mix well.
- Spoon the mixture into cases/ loaf tin and sprinkle with vanilla sugar.
- Bake until a cake tester comes out clean (about 25-30 mins for mini loaves or 45-50 for a large tin).
- Leave to cool on a wire rack for about 10 mins before removing from tin (and if slicing, allow to cool for an hour out of the tine to prevent it from crumbling).
- To glaze, warm the strawberry jam in a small saucepan and use a pastry brush to lightly glaze the top of each loaf.
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