Chocolate-Strawberry Bread

This is a recipe I used for our WC Platinum Chef Challenge (from The Nest). I used a recipe for double-chocolate banana bread (I think the original recipe is on this blog, too) and just changed some things around to make it with strawberries and nuts (two of the challenge ingredients).
Just had a slice of this for "lunch dessert" - wow! It's so worth all the fat and calories ;) I did decide to up the amount of strawberries by just a bit so you get more of the strawberry flavour (especially since that was one of the ingredients in the challenge!)
This was really easy to make and is super-yummy. I'll have to have my fruit-hating husband try it and post about what he thinks. :)

This recipe will make 16 (1 slice) servings

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups fresh strawberries, chopped (one of those 16-ounce containers)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 coarsely chopped walnuts

Method:
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray the bottom and sides of a loaf pan with nonstick spray.

2. In a large bowl, beat the sugar, eggs, and oil at medium speed until mixed. Beat in the vanilla extract. (I used my KA stand mixer for this part; if you don't have a stand mixer, you can use a large bowl with a hand-held electric mixer).

3. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, and baking soda; beat into sugar mixture at low speed until just combined (do not overmix). Use a wooden spoon to stir in the strawberries, chocolate chips, and walnuts.



4. Spoon the batter into a loaf pan. Bake for 60-70 minutes or until a tester inserted in the bread comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack then remove from pan and cool completely. Wrap the bread in foil and leave it overnight before slicing.


Reference:
This recipe was based on the Double-Chocolate Banana Bread Recipe which can also be found in this blog. The original Chocolate-Banana bread recipe was found in a copy of Cooking Pleasures Magazine which is published by the Cooking Club of America.