Quick Bread Two Ways: Pumpkin Spice and Strawberry

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I love making quickbreads and do it quite often.  This challenge came at the perfect time because one of my friends recently had a baby and to help her out I wanted to take her some freezer meals and some quick breakfast items.  I thought making her a few quick breads that she could freeze and then take out and eat whenever she needed something for breakfast was the perfect idea.

I’m always looking for base recipes that can be mixed up and then turned into different flavors.  I’ve done this many times with muffins and knew there had to be a recipe like this for quick breads.  Sure enough I found a great one that can be made into just about any flavor of quick bread.

I had just bought a 2 pound container of strawberries so I made one of the breads strawberry and for the other I made pumpkin spice bread.  The strawberry bread turned out moist and sweet.  The pumpkin bread was filled with spices and turned a gorgeous orange color.  I can’t wait to try making other flavors!

Quick Bread (recipe adapted from Allrecipes)
3 c. flour
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 T. baking powder
1 1/2 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. salt
12 T. butter, melted
3 eggs

For the strawberry bread:
1/2 c. milk
1 1/2c. strawberries, diced
1 t. vanilla

For the pumpkin spice bread:
1 1/2 c. pumpkin puree
1/2 c. milk
1 T. pumpkin pie spice

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spray mini loaf or regular sized loaf pans with cooking spray.

2.  In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Mix well.

3.  In a small mixing bowl combine the melted butter and the eggs.

4.  Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until a dry dough forms.  Divide the dough in half (or into 4 if you want more flavors-variations above are for the half the dough).

5.  Add the strawberry bread ingredients to half the dough and mix well.  Add the pumpkin spice bread ingredients to the other half of the dough and mix well.

6.  Pour the bread into 16 mini loaf pans or 4 regular sized loaf pans.  Cook the mini loaves for 20-25 minutes or the regular loaves for 45-50 minutes.  When a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean it is cooked.

7.  Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

**If freezing wrap the loaves in plastic wrap and then with foil.  Place in a freezer bag.  Quick breads can be frozen for up to 3 months.  To defrost simply place on the counter for 3 hours or in the refrigerator overnight.**