Strawberry Bread With or Without Gluten and Dairy

Spring is here! Try this delicious Strawberry Bread today, with or without gluten and dairy, it’s your choice!

Many years ago I visited the States with the choir I directed at the time. My third child was only 6 months old and he came along for the ride 🙂 We were just discovering his food allergies at the time and we didn’t yet know their full extent. I knew he was allergic to dairy so I was avoiding dairy since I was breastfeeding him.

The kind people we were staying with in St Louis made us a delicious breakfast of Banana Bread and this Strawberry Bread that I was so glad to find out did not contain dairy! I have since made this recipe my own by making it gluten-free and icing it with a delicious vanilla flavoured dairy-free icing.

You can of course make this recipe with normal plain flour and ice it with a cream cheese frosting, but personally I only ever make the gluten free version. It is wonderful as it is!

Is Strawberry Bread Really Bread?

The short answer to this is ‘no’. Strawberry Bread is more like a cake. It is not risen with yeast as bread is, but rather with baking powder, which gives it its cake texture. It also contains sugar and eggs, which traditional bread does not. Strawberry Bread would fall into the category of quick breads, along with banana bread. Here is an article explaining more if you are interested.

Equipment Needed to Make Strawberry Bread With or Without Gluten and Dairy

• Food processor
• Spatula
• Moule à pain
• Papier sulfurisé

Ingredients Needed to Make Strawberry Bread With or Without Gluten and Dairy

• 100g Oat flour
• 150g Rice flour or plain (all purpose) flour
• 185g Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• 100g Vegetable oil
• 2 Eggs
• 300g Frozen Strawberries

For the icing:

• 40g Vanilla soy yoghurt
• 160g Icing sugar

Oat Flour

I love the nutty flavour oat flour gives to this Strawberry Bread. Since oats usually contain gluten, please make sure you choose gluten-free oat flour if you are making the gluten-free version.

If you do not have any oat flour on hand, you can easily make it by whizzing it up for 20s in your food processor.

Rice Flour or Plain (All Purpose) Flour

You can use whichever flour you prefer here. I tend to use rice flour as the Strawberry Bread is quite moist and holds well despite the lack of gluten. You can, however, use normal wheat plain flour or your gluten-free plain flour blend.

Sucre

I use normal white sugar and it works perfectly.

Sel

Never skip the salt in sweet recipes, it really does help to bring out the flavour. I use fine table salt.

Poudre à lever

This will help your Strawberry Bread to rise and make it lighter. I have experimented with putting less in but I prefer the texture when there is 1tsp.

If you are making the gluten-free version, make sure your baking powder is gluten-free. Alternatively, you can use baking soda.

Cannelle

Cinnamon with give the Strawberry Bread a subtly spiced flavour. It is completely optional if you’re not a fan of cinnamon. I have also used mixed spice as an alternative and that works well too.

Huile

I use sunflower oil but I am sure melted coconut oil would work just as well, or any other flavourless oil that you have to hand. Using butter, however, will change the texture of the Strawberry Bread and make it richer.

Œufs

I always use free range-eggs, organic if possible. The eggs we have here in France tend to be quite large.

Frozen Strawberries

I have only ever made this recipe with frozen strawberries. This has the advantage of giving you springtime flavours all year round! If you wish, you can use fresh strawberries.

Icing

This simple icing is made of just two ingredients: Vanilla flavoured soy yoghurt and icing sugar. Options here would be to use normal vanilla yoghurt instead of the soy yoghurt or to go ahead and use your normal cream cheese icing recipe, that would be really good too!

How to Make Strawberry Bread With or Without Gluten and Dairy

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan. Grease a loaf tin and line with parchment. This will make it a lot easier to remove your Strawberry Bread after baking.

Add all of your ingredients to a food processor or stand mixer.

Mix until well blended, about 30s. If you use a stand mixer, or if you mix by hand, you will end up with small pieces of strawberries. This is fine, it will just add a bit of texture to your Strawberry Bread. If you have whole strawberries, you may wish to chop them first.

Pour the batter into your prepared loaf tin and bake in the preheated oven for 50-65 mins.

I usually start checking my Strawberry Bread at 50mins. If a skewer or knife comes out clean, or with only a couple of crumbs, it is cooked. For me this always takes longer than I expect. You may find you need to cover your Strawberry Bread with aluminium foil to prevent it from burning after about 50 mins. This will all really depend on your oven.

Allow the Strawberry Bread to cool completely in the tin. Meanwhile, make the icing by mixing together the yoghurt and the icing sugar until there are no lumps. Remove the Strawberry Bread from the tin onto a rectangular plate. Pour the icing onto the Strawberry Bread and smooth out with a spatula. I like to let it run a little down the side 🙂

You can decorate your Strawberry Bread with slices of fresh strawberry if you have them, I like to add some mint leaves and lemon rind too for a dash of colour.

When Should I Serve Strawberry Bread With or Without Gluten and Dairy?

You can serve this delicious Strawberry Bread as my american friends did for breakfast (although I probably wouldn’t ice it in that case). It is also amazing with a cup of tea in the afternoon or as a pretty, original dessert for a family dinner.

We absolutely love this Strawberry Bread and I hope you will too! Let me know if you make it with or without gluten and dairy in the comments, I love to hear from you 🙂

Looking for more gluten and dairy free cake and quick bread ideas? Click ici!