We live near a strawberry farm. Well, it’s actually about ten miles from us, but in this area that’s considered close by. Sometimes we get lucky and find pretty decent-tasting strawberries at Whole Foods and find them less often at Publix. However, nothing compares to fresh strawberries that you pick right off the vine. The sweet juicy flavor of fresh strawberries is one of my favorite things about summer. Though it’s not technically summer yet and the weather here can’t make up its mind, we’ve had average temps several days here already. What better time to put fresh strawberries to use?
Whole Foods actually has a great online article about how to use strawberries. Many of the recipes listed are gluten-free or can be easily modified to be so. We loved strawberry shortcake and in our gluten-eating days, used Sara Lee’s pound cake to make it. These days, we either bake a pound cake with a mix (123 gluten-free or Sylvan Border Farm) or use the ready-made sponge cake from Shabtai-Gourmet.
Even though we avoid using the oven during the summer – as much as we can – making fresh strawberry bread has become a ritual since our house went gluten-free. Before we knew there was a strawberry farm near us, we used frozen strawberries to make the bread. Now, only freshly picked will do. You can make full or mini loaves and freeze the loaves for up to six months. Here is the recipe I use from Recipe Zaar. For the flour, we now use Jules gluten-free, but Pamela’s baking mix or Gluten-Free Pantry’s all-purpose flour works well too. Add some xanthan gum if the flour blends you use do not contain it. To remove some of the fat and still make a moist loaf, use some unsweetened applesauce for some of the oil. Just don’t use all applesauce if you want it to be really moist.
Another way to enjoy strawberries it to use them over vanilla ice cream or in my case, frozen yogurt. Adding chocolate sauce and whipped cream makes the perfect summer sundae. Soak cut-up strawberries in a little orange juice for several hours or overnight. We do this for both sundaes and strawberry shortcakes. There are countless ways to enjoy this amazing summer fruit. And besides tasting delicious, strawberries are quite healthy as well. They have more fiber than you might think, contain no cholesterol, and are loaded with Vitamin C. Check out the full nutritional data here. How do you enjoy strawberries during the summer?
Oooh! I love strawberries!! I love them in my cereal, yogurt or spinach salads! That bread looks really good. I may make that next week! 🙂
KIm
Beautiful bread, Tiffany! Hard to resist fresh strawberries. 🙂
Shirley
I agree – fresh off the vine strawberries can’t be beat! I have to review the King Arthur muffin mix so I’m headed to get a batch next week to make strawberry muffins with. The strawberry bread freezes well so I make several mini loaves to use when traveling during the summer.
Shirley – thanks for the compliment! You create such lovely recipes and those of us who are recipe followers are lucky to have people like you sharing with us!
I love strawberries, but lately I have been seeing some very contradictory information about whether strawberries are indeed gluten free. Some sources claim that since many strawberry plants are grown in wheat straw that the berry itself contains some of the gluten protein that can not be washed off. Has anyone else heard this or had experiences dealing with this?
I’ve heard of this info before, but I wash the strawberries well and enjoy them all the time. The good news for me is that I’ll know if something is gluten-free or not by eating it. I realize not all people have that ability and I can’t imagine how hard it would be to eat gluten and not react as if you ate something you should not have.
There is a LOT of incorrect information about what is and isn’t gluten-free on the internet (and even in some books). While this is unfortunate, it can’t be helped. It’s up to us to make up our own minds based on well researched data. All gluten-free diet experts I’ve asked about the “wheat straw – gluten in strawberries” rumor agree that the strawberries are gluten-free if you wash them well. Companies that sell frozen strawberries wash their berries really well, so stick with frozen berries if it makes you more comfortable.