Strawberry Cream Cheese Bread

A delicious sweet and moist bread made with fresh strawberries and cream cheese. This strawberry cream cheese bread makes for a tasty breakfast or after school snack

I am loving that it is strawberry season! One of my favourite simple desserts in the summer is French Vanilla ice cream topped with fresh strawberries. Strawberries and cream is a perfect combination in my opinion. A few years ago I made this Fresh Strawberry bread from My Baking Addiction. I remembered it being sweet, slightly tangy and delicious. So when I bought fresh strawberries at the grocery store this week, I knew I wanted to make a strawberry bread with them. I adapted Jamie's recipe to make this delicious strawberry cream cheese bread. It is full of that strawberry and cream flavour that I love. The cream cheese and sour cream make this bread incredibly moist. The bread comes together quickly and bakes up to a beautiful golden brown loaf. 

This bread is deadly! If I let myself, I could eat an entire loaf in one sitting. In the fall and winter, I regularly make banana bread but I think this strawberry bread is quickly going to be added to the rotation for spring and summer.  

Strawberry Cream Cheese Bread

Makes: Two 8 inch loaves

Adapted from: My Baking Addiction 

Ingredients

1/2 c butter, at room temperature

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1 c sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c sour cream

2 c strawberries, washed & chopped

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Grease and flour two 8inch loaf pans. Set aside.

In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, over medium to high speed beat together butter, cream cheese and sugar, for 2-3 minutes or until light and fluffy. The mixture should be almost white in colour

Add eggs into butter mixture one a time. Mix until just combined. Add in vanilla

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Over low speed, slowly add flour mixture to wet ingredients in stand mixer. Mix until just combined. Once combined, mix in sour cream

Using a rubber spatula fold strawberries into bread batter. The batter will be thick and pale in colour

Evenly divide batter between prepared pans. Use your rubber spatula to spread batter evenly in pans. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean

Allow bread to cool in pan for 10-15 minutes before cooling completely on a wire rack. Slice bread and enjoy!

Almond Raspberry Scones

Delicious and buttery scones with a crunchy sugar crust, dotted with raspberries and topped with slivered almonds make these raspberry almond scones irresistible.

Scones make me think small cafes and large steaming warm cups of tea. Leisurely mornings or afternoons spent at a coffee shop reading a good book and people watching. They are indulgent and make an ordinary day just a little more special. Scones are the perfect buttery treat. The silvered almonds at a great texture and I love the way raspberries add a beautiful pink colour to the scones.  The trick to making scones is keeping everything as cold as possible. You want visible specks of butter studded throughout the dough - much like pie dough. This is what helps to create a deliciously fluffy and slightly flakey scone when baked. 

Like the majority of the treats I share on the blog, I brought these scones into work for my colleagues to try. They are my trusty taste testers. Since they try so many of my baked goods they aren't afraid to tell me when something doesn't quite live up to my usual standards. They know they can be honest and the treats will keep rolling in week after week. I mean after all I can only eat so much sugar on any given day plus I truly believe that baked goods are meant to be shared with friends. We work on a shared desk,  in an open co-working space, so I innocently left the tupperware container of scones out in the middle and waited for the verdict. They were devoured within minutes (after everyone grabbed a coffee to go with them of course). My one coworker has affectionally referred to them as Crack Scones. They are just that addictive - you have been warned.

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Raspberry Almond Scones 

Makes 8 

Ingredients

1/2 c sugar

1 3/4 c flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c cold butter, cut into small squares

1 egg

3/4 c heavy cream, plus 2-3 table spoons for tops

1 tsp almond extract

1/2 c slivered almonds

1 c frozen raspberries

corse sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the first four dry ingredients

Using either a pastry cutter, fork or your hands, cut cold butter into flour mixture. Course crumbs should form, almost like a wet sand

In a small bowl, beat together egg, cream and almond extract. Add liquid ingredients to flour and butter mixture. Mix until just combined. Add in almonds and raspberries. Mix until incorporated

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Kneed until combined. Shape dough into a large circular shape, about 1 inch thick. Cut into 8 equal triangular pieces

Spaced evenly apart, place scones onto prepared baking sheet. Brush tops with every cream and top with additional slivered almonds and corse sugar

Bake for 14-16 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Allow scones to cool on baking sheet before transferring to serving platter. Store in airtight container.

Earl Grey Cookies

With a hint of vanilla and a whole lot of earl grey flavour these earl grey cookies make for the perfect afternoon treat!

Those that know me, know I am a tea drinker. I may or may not have a slight obsession. I probably have at least 30 different teas in my ever growing collection. The tea I gravitate to most is Earl Grey. As part of my morning ritual, I drink a big warm mug of earl grey tea. One of my favourite earl grey teas is the Cream of Earl Grey. It has a lovely creamy vanilla flavour to it. I tried to capture that flavour in these cookies. 

These cookies have a slightly different texture then my traditional sugar cookies. They are a bit of a hybird between a sugar cookie and a shortbread cookie. A traditional shortbread cookie is typically butter, sugar and flour. In this cookie I have included an egg making it more like a sugar cookie. However, I kept the ratio of butter, sugar and flour the same as shortbread cookie. These cookies have a denser crumbly texture and a richer buttery flavour then my usual sugar cookie.

Earl Grey Cookies

Makes: 24-30 cookies

Ingredients

1 c butter, at room temperature

1 c icing sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 c flour

2 tbsp earl grey tea leaves (approx. 4 tea bags)

Directions

In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, on medium-high speed cream together butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy. On medium speed beat in egg & vanilla until just combined. On low speed add flour & earl grey leaves to mixture. Mix until just combined. Dough should come together into a large ball. Divide dough into 2 pieces. Roll into logs (approx. 2 inches in diameter), wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in fridge for minimum 1 hour.

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove logs from plastic wrap. With a sharp knife cut cookies off log 1/3-1/2 inch thick.

Transfer cookie to prepared baking tray, spacing them out baking 12 per tray. The cookies won't spread much when baking. Bake for 12-16 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. Baking time will vary based on the thickness of the cookies. Allow cookies to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.