Strawberry Cobbler Bread

Arik told me this strawberry cobbler bread was the best cake I'd ever made for him. It's worth pointing out this statement is important for two reasons: I've made a lot of desserts he's liked and this bread is a quick bread that's really more like a tea cake. It's fruit cobbler in bread form, which is basically the perfect union of two of my favorite things (fruit and bread).

I stumbled across this recipe in Sweet and Vicious a couple years ago, when we were facing a surplus of farmer's market strawberries that needed to be used quickly. I'd never seen anything like Libbie Summer's strawberry cobbler bread recipe, but it seemed like the perfect solution.

Libbie purees 3 cups of fruit to add a ton of moisture and fruity flavor to her quick bread. Then it's a simple matter of combining the fruit puree with butter, eggs, and citrus extract. This is whisked together with flour, sugar, leaveners, salt, and cinnamon. If you like, add some decorative pieces of fruit and a cobbler topping, then proceed to bake a little more than 1 hour. The prep for this bread is really simple, and although you have to suffer through 1 hour of divine smells emanating from your oven, the end result is absolutely worth it. Strawberry cobbler bread is butter-y, strawberry-y, and quite delicate. The texture and consistency is similar to pound cake, but the flavor is much more interesting. On my balsamic-strawberry swirl side, the jam sank a bit into the bread, so it looked like there was a weird underdone section, but it was just the jam. This made it less photogenic than one might hope, but it tasted great. I've never been a fan of cooked chunks of fruit in my food, unless they're small berries or apple in pie, so I love the use of a fruit puree here. You get the delicious flavor of the fruit without the weird (in my opinion) texture of cooked fruit. I don't like chopped nuts in my dessert either. This is because baked goodies are meant to be smooth and luscious, not interrupted by different textures. Anyone who believes differently will still like this bread, but I want you to know you're wrong....I've opted to use strawberries, but you should feel free to experiment with other fruits. As long as you use fresh or frozen fruit (not canned), it's hard to go wrong. Libbie suggests peaches, blackberries, sour cherries, or apricots as alternate fruits. Instead of the strawberry balsamic glaze, drizzle a light caramel sauce on top of the cooked peach cobbler bread, or make a blackberry-lemon-thyme compound butter to enjoy with the berry bread. Mix up the nuts in the cobbler topping. Add lime zest instead of the lemon and orange extracts. Make a thin lemony icing to drizzle over a blueberry cobbler bread. There are so many great options for modifying this bread to make it your own - just stick with the fruit weight and experiment!I do really like this recipe, but the current winner (in my opinion), for best fruit-based cake still goes to the cherry poppyseed yogurt cake from Sweeter Off the Vine. It's also important to note that this fruit bread doesn't hold up quite as well over time - it's definitely best within 24 hours of baking. In particular, the people who I gave the mini-loaves to complained that the strawberry flavor did not come through very well (but they enjoyed it otherwise). People who ate a slice from strawberry-balsamic swirl side of the full loaf had no such quibble.  A guy I've never met at work stopped by to tell me I should open a bakery just to sell this bread after trying a bit of that side. So... perhaps I over-baked the mini-loaves? Overall I'd say this bread is excellent and I highly recommend the balsamic swirl option.

Slightly adapted from Sweet and Vicious

Strawberry Cobbler Bread

Slightly adapted from the original recipe. Think of this recipe as a template - feel free to substitute in any fruit instead of the strawberries. If you use blueberries, you'll wind up with a brilliant purple bread.

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour

Total Time: 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings: 1 loaf

Ingredients

Fruit cobbler bread

• 12 oz (340 g) strawberries hulled (about 3 cups)
• ½ cup butter melted and cooled to room temperature
• 3 large eggs
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon lemon extract*
• ½ teaspoon orange extract*
• 2 cups (273 g) whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour
• ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
• ½ cup (110 g) firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon or baker's brew spice**

Topping (use one or the other, not both)

Cobbler streusel

• ¼ cup pecans toasted and chopped
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch cayenne powder
• pinch flaky sea salt
• ¼ cup (35 grams) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter softened

Balsamic swirl

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons quality strawberry jam like D'arbo

Instructions

Fruit cobbler bread

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan***. Line with a strip of parchment paper the width of the pan, such that the paper hangs over both sides by a few inches.
• Using a food processor or blender, puree the fruit. This should yield a bit more than 1 cup of fruit puree.
• Beat together the fruit puree, butter, eggs, and extracts until smooth and well-blended.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, sugars, leaveners, salt, and spices).
• Slowly add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and mix gently until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Topping

• Decide on the streusel or balsamic swirl topping
• Streusel topping
• Place all the ingredients together in a medium bowl, mix together with your hands until it becomes sand-like in consistency.
• Balsamic swirl
• Place vinegar and jam together in a small bowl, stir together until well mixed.

Assembly

• Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan (the bread will rise about 1 inch, so don't fill to the top of your pan). Sprinkle the top with the cobbler streusel or swirl in the balsamic swirl (dollop the swirl on top of the batter, then use a knife to swirl it decoratively along the top of the batter).
• Bake for 45-60 minutes, until the bread is golden brown and tester comes out clean (the buttery streusel will obscure doneness, so avoid sticking your toothpick through it).
• Transfer to a cooling rack for 15 minutes, then remove from the pan. If consuming the whole loaf immediately, feel free to serve warm with generous amounts of butter**** or naked. Otherwise, let it cool completely before slicing. This bread is best the day it is made, but it will last 2-3 days tightly wrapped at room temperature.

Notes

*If you don't have lemon or orange extract, feel free to add 1 teaspoon of zest from one or both citrus fruits, or simply add more vanilla extract.
**Baker's brew spice is sold by the Savory Spice store in Westfield and consists of a mix of espresso powder, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, mace, and ginger. This spice mix is fantastic in baking, but I'm not certain of the exact proportions. They'll ship to your address, but you could also make your own by adding ⅛ teaspoon each of nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, mace and allspice (plus the ½ teaspoon cinnamon) here.
***This fruit cobbler bread makes adorable mini-loaves. Using a silicone mini-loaf pan, bake about 25-30 minutes.
****Make a strawberry compound butter to serve with this by mixing together ½ cup of butter, 6 mashed strawberries, and 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (or more to taste).

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