Tea Room Recipe #16 - Miss Daisy's Tea Room (Nashville, Tenn.)

I cannot think of strawberries without thinking of my niece Amelia, who is almost 8. When she was just a little girl, my parents took her to a buffet for dinner one night since she was a picky eater and they knew she was bound to find something she liked. At the end of the meal she asked if she could go get some of the strawberries she had seen. My parents were seated nearby and told her that was fine since they could see her as she selected her treat. Soon, Amelia returned with a plateful of sliced strawberries … which she had methodically snatched from the tops of all the little squares of vanilla-iced cake. When my mother got her dessert, she saw rows of cake squares with little holes in the icing and realized what Amelia had done! So I can't help thinking Amelia would approve of my recipe this week, Strawberry Bread. (Note how well it goes with the strawberry tea and toast set my friend Teresa gave me for Christmas!)

The book "Miss Daisy Entertains" is a 1982 edition of the book by Daisy King, who ran Miss Daisy's Tea Room in Nashville, Tenn. When I found this used cookbook, the previous owner had listed three recipes on the inside cover: the Strawberry Bread on page 139, the Spicy Sausage Balls on page 60 and the Beets with Orange Sauce on page 120. Now I am not a fan of beets, and sausage balls are sausage balls in my book, but the Strawberry Bread appealed to me. And even though I got one ingredient wrong (or did I? -- see below), I was delighted with this moist, delicious loaf!

Strawberry Bread

3 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups thawed, sliced frozen strawberries (a one-pound bag)
1-1/2 cups vegetable oil*
1-1/4 cups chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Sift together the flour, soda, salt, cinnamon and sugar. In separate bowl, combine eggs, strawberries and oil. Add wet ingredients to dry ones and combine. Add pecans and blend well. Pour into two 9x5x3-inch loaf pans prepared with cooking spray or lined with parchment paper. Bake for 60-75 minutes or until bread tests done. Cool in pan 5 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool completely.

*Note: After I popped my two loaf pans into the oven, I started cleaning up and realized that, uh-oh, I had 1/2 cup of oil still sitting there. I had measured out the 1 cup of oil, added it, but then forgot to add the other 1/2 cup. I decided to just go ahead and let the loaves cook, and to my surprise and delight, this was some of the best, most moist tea bread I've ever made! My husband even ate 2 slices! So, please know that yes, the original recipe calls for 1-1/2 cups of oil, but when I make this again I'll use just 1 cup again. Why tamper with perfection!