...one for the surrogate brother

So, my forever surrogate brother has developed a sort of cooking illness.  He wants to learn, I want to share my knowledge with him, but he is totally in to baking, which I mostly suck at.  I have been working really hard on my baking skills in my time off.  (By the way, sorry for the absence.  I got a new job, I am adjusting my schedule, but I haven't stopped cooking!  I have just had to take a leave of absence from posting until I figure out when I can do it.) He inspired me - I got a photo of muffins that he baked, I was so proud!  So, a recipe to share with FSB - strawberry muffins with cream cheese drop icing.  This is a family recipe for strawberry bread.  So if any of you out there remember it from the KC's Sub Shop days, do enjoy!

What you will need
Some all-purpose flour
Baking soda
Granulated sugar
Salt
Cinnamon
Strawberries (you can use fresh or frozen, frozen will give a more consistent result)
4 large eggs
Some vegetable oil
Cooking spray or butter to grease the pans
2 loaf pans or two muffin pans
A mixer
A whisk
A couple of measuring cups
Measuring spoons
An oven and hot pads/oven mitts
Something to smash with - like a potato masher (heavy duty one) or a mix n chop
Mixing bowl(s)
8 ounces of cream cheese
A pound (yes, a pound) of confectioner's sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
A couple of scraping spatulas

I think that is everything, unless you want to use a cooling rack for cooling purposes.  It isn't a horrible idea.  Oh, also keep your sink, soap and hand towel on standby after you deal with the raw eggs.  Safety first!

Let's do this!

1. Wash your skanky hands.
2. Preheat the oven to 350.
3. Use measuring cups and a measuring spoons to dump these items into a mixing bowl:
• 3 cups of flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 2 cups of granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 3 teaspoons of cinnamon
4. Whisk your dry ingredients together to break up any lumps in the flour.
5. Then, break the eggs into a separate bowl or measuring cup, and use the whisk to beat the hell out of them.
6. Dump the eggs in with the dry ingredients, and follow that up by adding 1 1/4 cups of vegetable oil.
7. Quickly smash the strawberries in a separate bowl, then add them to the other ingredients.  Hit it all with the mixer until everything is well incorporated.
8. Grease your pans with butter or cooking spray.
9. Use your scraping spatula to make sure you get all of the batter into the pans and out of the bowl.  (sometimes those strawberries like to stick to the bowl)
10. Pop the filled pans into the oven for about an hour.
11. Please allow your loaves to cool completely before attempting to ice them.  Better yet, if you are really making these into loaves (I made mine into muffins) I would suggest that you just serve the icing on the side.
12. Make some icing, mmmmkay!
1. Whip the cream cheese with the mixer until it looks light and fluffy.
2. Slowly add the heavy cream, allowing it to incorporate into the cream cheese.
3. Once the cream is incorporated, slowly add in the confectioner's sugar in small amounts until it has all been added and you end up with icing.  (Don't dump it all in at once.  Breathing in sugar particulates seems cool, but it isn't!  Delicious, yes!  Good for the lungs, probably not.)
13. Okay, so slice the bread when it is cooled, or serve it up as muffins if you prefer (I guessed on the bake time when I did muffins - just keep an eye out after about 12 minutes.)  Store the icing in the fridge and serve it on the side if you chose bread-style. (Hello, maximize the icing to bread ratio!!)

I hope everyone enjoys, and hopefully there will be more recipes to come soon! As always, please share any comments, and sausage links!  And you'll find this archived in the phoodos section!