Strawberry Cheesecake Sweet Bread for #TwelveLoaves

Think brioche with a little extra sugar and cream cheese added to the sweet dough instead of butter and you get the idea of how this is going to taste. Add in some good quality strawberry jam, fresh strawberries and even more cream cheese for the perfect snack or breakfast loaf. It’s great straight out of the oven and fabulous toasted. 

This month Twelve Loaves is baking up bread with strawberries. The whole time I was away in Uganda, I was mulling this over in my mind. I have the ability to work on and work out a recipe with one section of my mind, even while the rest of me is reading a book or shopping or bouncing along dusty trails or even cooking something else. Perhaps it’s my super power. Anyway, this came to me between wild animals and waterfalls. Would it be possible to bake a yeast bread using cream cheese instead of butter for the fat? I couldn’t wait to get home to start testing.

I am delighted to report that not only is it possible, it’s delicious.

Ingredients
For the dough:
1 packet (1/4 oz or 7g) dried yeast (I use Fleischmann’s Rapid Rise.)
3/4 cup or 90ml whole milk
3 cups or 375g flour
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup or 60g full fat (not whipped) cream cheese
1 egg yolk

For the filling:
1/2 cup or 120g cream cheese, chilled
3 1/2 oz or 100g fresh strawberries (about six medium-sized)
1/4 cup or 80g good quality strawberry jam

Egg white to glaze
Optional topping– about 1 oz or 25g pearl sugar

Method
Warm your milk slightly (I use a quick zap in the microwave.) and then add in one tablespoon of the sugar. Sprinkle on the yeast, stir and set aside for a few minutes. Your yeast should get foamy.

Add your three cups of flour into the mixing bowl of your stand mixer with the rest of the sugar and the salt.

Add in milk/yeast mixture along with the egg yolk and mix with the bread hook.

It’s going to look dry and like it won’t come together.

You may need to stop the mixer and scrape the dough off the hook and put it back in the bowl and then keep mixing but soon, you will have homogeneous soft dough.

Now add in half of the cream cheese and mix until fully incorporated. (It’s like adding butter to brioche.)

Now add the second half of the cream cheese and mix until it is incorporated. Form the dough into a ball with your spatula and leave to rise for about an hour in a warm place. I usually put the bowl in my kitchen sink which has been partially filled with hot water.

Meanwhile, prepare your bread pan by greasing it with butter or non-stick spray or lining it with baking parchment. I am a huge fan of lining with parchment.

Right before your hour rising time is up, hull and chop the strawberries. Don’t do this too far ahead or they will get wet and mushy.

The dough after an hour rising time

On a well-floured surface, push your dough out into a rectangle of about 14” x 12” or 34cm x 30cm.

You can use a rolling pin if you really want to but this is a soft dough and I just pressed it out easily with my hands.

Spread it with the strawberry jam and sprinkle on the chopped strawberries. Cut your chilled cream cheese into small cubes and scatter them out on the jam as well.

Start rolling up the dough on the long side.

When you have a tight roll, seam side up, fold each half into the middle.

 

Gently turn the dough over and lay it fold side down in your prepared loaf pan.

Allow to rise in a warm place for another hour, but set your timer for 45 minutes.  When it rings, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Don’t forget to set the timer again for the last 15 minutes of rising time.

After one hour rising time

When your full hour is up, beat your egg white and brush it on the loaf with a soft pastry brush.

Sprinkle with pearl sugar, if desired.

Bake 45 minutes or until done in your preheated oven. Ever since making the peanut butter and chocolate braid http://www.foodlustpeoplelove.com/2014/02/chocolate-peanut-butter-braid.html  last month, I’ve been using David Lebovitz’s tip of measuring the internal temperature of a loaf to determine doneness. A properly baked loaf is 180°F or 82°C or in the middle.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before slicing. If you can wait that long.

Enjoy!

February was a delicious month of Chocolate breads! Now we are ready for spring and chose Strawberries for our March theme!

• Strawberry Almond Quick Bread by Renee from Magnolia Days
• Strawberry Bread with Rhubarb and Bananas by Renee from Kudos Kitchen
• Strawberry Buttermilk Scones by Liz from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Balsamic Strawberry Cinnamon Rolls by Felice from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Framboise Muffins with Strawberry Jam by Rossella from Ma che ti sei mangiato
• Strawberry Dessert Rolls by Dionne from Try Anything Once Culinary
• Strawberry Hazelnut Buttermilk Quick Bread by Heather from girlichef
• Strawberry Swirl Sweet Rolls by Donna from Cookistry
• Strawberry Bread by Holly from A Baker's House
• Strawberry Cheesecake Sweet Bread by Stacy from Food Lust People Love
• Strawberry Cream Cheese Muffins by Deepti from Baking Yummies
• Strawberry Danish by Karen from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Strawberry Bagels by Lora from Cake Duchess

Would you like to join us this month? Choose a recipe featuring strawberries. (It could be a bread accented with fresh or dried strawberries or even strawberry preserves!) Whatever you bake (yeasted, quick bread, crackers, muffins, grissini, braids, flatbreads, etc.) have fun and let's have a delicious month of bread with strawberries. Let's get baking!

If you’d like to add your recipe to the collection with the Linky Tool this month, here’s what you need to do!

1. When you post your Twelve Loaves bread on your blog, make sure that you mention the Twelve Loaves challenge in your blog post; this helps us to get more members as well as share everyone's posts. Please make sure that your bread is inspired by the theme!

2. Please link your post to the linky tool at the bottom of my blog. It must be a bread baked to the Twelve Loaves theme.

3. Have your Twelve Loaves bread that you baked this March, 2014, posted on your blog by March 31, 2014.

#TwelveLoaves is a monthly bread baking party created by Lora from Cake Duchess.  #TwelveLoaves runs so smoothly thanks to the help of the lovely Renee from Magnolia Days and this month the fabulous Alice of Hip Foodie Mom. 

Smoked Salmon Potato Stacks

If you are looking for a change from crackers and bread as a base for canapés, may I suggest sliced potatoes? They work particularly well with cream cheese and smoked salmon. Check out my deliciously adorable smoked salmon potato stacks! It's a delicious combination. And naturally gluten-free.



I have a confession to make. Sometimes I have neither crackers or bread. But I almost always have potatoes. Panfry a few thick slices and you've got the perfect base for the spread of your choice. 

I created this recipe a few years back for Appetizer Week. Since then I've served potato slices with many other toppings but you can't beat this classic combination.

Smoked Salmon Potato Stacks

Quick to make ahead and quick to assemble, your party guests will love these easy to eat finger food.

Ingredients
2 potatoes (Together mine weighed about 13 3/4 oz or 390g.)
Olive oil
5 oz or 140g cream cheese at room temperature
4 tablespoons plain yogurt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper
Tiny piece purple onion 1/3 oz or 10g
6 oz or 170g thinly sliced smoked salmon
Chopped parsley, mint or fennel fronds to decorate, optional

Method
Peel your potatoes and slice them into rounds about 1/4 inch or 6mm thick. I got about 10 or 11 good slices from each potato and discarded the end bits, which would have been too small to match the rest.



Drizzle a little olive oil on a non-stick griddle pan and cook your potatoes in batches until they are browned on both sides and cooked through. Set aside to cool.



Mix the cream cheese, yogurt and lemon juice together in a small bowl and give it a generous few grinds of black pepper.



Thinly slice your purple onion.



Put the cream cheese mixture in a Ziploc bag and cut a small corner off so you can squeeze it out.

Share the cream cheese mixture out between the cooked potato slices, reserving just a little bit to garnish.



Cut the smoked salmon slices into skinnier pieces and roll them up. Set two or three small rolls on the cream cheese mixture.



Finish with another small dab of the cream cheese mixture and top with a sliver of the purple onion. If you like onion and know your crowd does too, feel free to put more.



Sprinkle with chopped parsley, mint or fennel fronds to decorate, if desired.



Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.



Enjoy!

Cherry Blueberry Cheesecake Bundt for #BundtaMonth

While I was in Houston for a week visiting family, I decided that it would be a good time to bake my Bundt for April’s BundtaMonth because 1. Time would be short when I got back to Dubai and 2. I had been invited over for dinner and 3.  I found this lovely Bundt pan in my cupboard.

As I might possibly have said to my BundtaMonth friends, you know you have too many baking pans when you forget you own something as pretty as that!   (Disclaimer:  I will completely deny even possibly saying that if anyone brings this to my husband’s attention.  Because: One can never have too many baking pans.  Am I right?)

Our BundtaMonth hosts, Lora and Anuradha decided that our theme this month is cherries!  Since they are frankly hard to find fresh at this time of the year in Houston, I decided to go with dried cherries and add in some fresh blueberries to join them.  This Bundt has three layers:  Cream cheese pound cake batter, followed by a cream cheese filling based on the cream cheese layer in this great recipe from fellow BundtaMonth member, Anita from Hungry Couple,  and then another layer of the pound cake batter.  Then, to top it all off, a drizzled cream cheese glaze.  I took it over to my little sister’s house for dinner and her youngest son fawned over it lovingly until it was time for supper.  Then they all had healthy (not healthy!) slices for dessert.  I tell you true:  Like baking pans, there is no such thing as too much cream cheese.  

Yes, it was already cut!  Because I had to take photos.  I gave the cut slices to my elderly neighbor
who was sick with bronchitis and needed love and sugar. 

Ingredients

Cake batter:

2 cups or 250g flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup or 225g unsalted butter (at room temperature)

6 ounce or 170g cream cheese (at room temperature)

2 cups or 450g sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla

Zest of a lemon

Cheesecake filling:

8 oz or 226g cream cheese (room temperature)

1 egg

1/4 cup or 55g sugar

1/4 cup or 30g flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup or 100g dried cherries plus a few extra for decoration

1/2 cup or 75g fresh blueberries plus a few extra for decoration

Glaze:

2 oz cream cheese

1/4 cup or 30g icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3-4 teaspoons milk

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your Bundt pan by spraying liberally with non-stick spray and then coating with a little flour.

The filling is very easy.  Add all the ingredients, except the cherries and blueberries, to your mixing bowl and beat until smooth and lump free.

Fold in your cherries and blueberries.  Cover with cling film and refrigerate until needed.

For the cake batter, in a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth.

Add the sugar, either a third at a time, beating well after each addition, or in a slow continuous stream as you are beating.

Continue beating on medium-high speed until light and fluffy (about 3 - 5 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Add the vanilla and lemon zest and beat until incorporated.

Add in half the flour mixture and beat again.

Add the rest of the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated.

Pour half the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Spoon on the cherry blueberry cream cheese filling and spread it around the pan.

Top with the remaining cream cheese batter.

Bake for about 55-65 minutes in your preheated oven or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for at least 15- 20 minutes before trying to remove it.  It should start to pull away from the sides of the pan as it cools.

To remove it, place a wire rack upside down on the cake and invert the cake pan to release the cake.  Allow to cool completely before adding the glaze.

While your cake is cooling, chop your extra decoration cherries and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine your first three glaze ingredients and then add the milk, starting with just 1 teaspoon.

Continue mixing well and adding milk one teaspoon at a time until you reach drizzling thickness.  I ended up adding only 3 teaspoons to mine.

When your cake is completely cool, add the cream cheese glaze to a small baggie and cut the corner off.  Squeeze out the glaze slowly and drizzle it all over the cake.

Stud it with bits of cherry and whole blueberries to decorate.

Enjoy!

And check out my fellow bloggers beautiful cakes:

• Black Forest Mini Bundt Cakes by Kim at Cravings of a Lunatic 
• Chocolate Cherry Bundt Cake by Anuradha at Baker Street
• Cherry-filled Bundt Cake with Chocolate Cherry Drizzle by Heather at Hezzi D's Books and Cooks 
• Cherry Bundt Cake by Veronica at My Catholic Kitchen 
• Cherry Kirsch Bundt by Tara at Noshing With The Nolands 
• Cherry Pecan Bundt Cake by Renee at Magnolia Days 
• Chocolate Cherry Bundt Cake by Lora at Cake Duchess 
•  Chocolate Cherry Coke Cake by Jennie at The Messy Baker Blog 
•  Chocolate Cherry Dream by Kim at Ninja Baking 
•  Coconut Cherry Chip Bundt by Anne at From My Sweet Heart 
• Lemon Cherry Bundt Cake with Lemon Glaze by Anita at Hungry Couple 
• Mahlab Vanilla Bundt Cake by Laura at The Spiced Life 
• Spicy Cherry Yogurt Bundt Cake by Paula at Vintage Kitchen 
• White Chocolate Black Cherry Yogurt Bundt Cake by Karen at In the Kitchen With KP

If you'd like to add your cherry Bundt for April, here are the rules:

- Simple rule: Use any cherries (or any part of the cherry) – and bake us a Bundt for April
- Post it before April 30, 2013.
- Use the #BundtAMonth hashtag in your title. (For ex: title should read #BundtAMonth: Chocolate Cinnamon Bundt)
- Add your entry to the Linky tool below
- Link back to our announcement posts.

Follow Bundt-a-Month on Facebook where we feature all our gorgeous bundt cakes. Or head over to our Pinterest board for inspiration and choose from over 350 Bundt cake recipes.