I’m usually not much of a baker and I prefer to stick with all things savory. I can make mean vegetarian lasagna and delicious marmalade ribs, but I’ve also caused a cake to flop and cookies to burn. There is such an abundance of beautiful fruit around at the moment that I’m attempting to give it a baking another chance. Using fruit in baking is an excellent way to use up fruit that is bruised, damaged or a little past its use-by date. People often tend to stick to the conventional banana bread, rhubarb tart, and blueberry muffins, but I find that fruit is so versatile that it’s fun to play around with flavour combinations and mix up different recipes.
I’ve got a ton of blueberries, strawberries and some old apples that need to be used so I thought I’d give it a go in a loaf. I browsed a few recipes and then modified a couple of strawberry loaf recipes to come up with my own. It turned out surprisingly well! This loaf is perfect with a cup of tea or warm with melted butter on a weekend morning.
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup white flour
- 1 cup steel cut oats
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup plain Greek yoghurt
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 cups sugar
- 3 cups diced fruit
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup granola
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- ¼ cup butter
- Pre-heat oven to 3450F
- In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients and mix well.
- In a separate bowl, beat the eggs then add the Greek yoghurt and oil.
- Combine both dry and wet mixtures and add the fruit.
- Pour the loaf mixture into a greased loaf tin.
- To make the granola, melt the butter, honey and sugar in the microwave. Add the granola to the mix and sprinkle over the loaf.
- Bake in the oven on 350F for 45 to 60 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.