Fruit-Filled Quick Bread with Frozen Peaches

With the flame-colored trees taking their final bows and bare branches filling the skyline, peaches might be the last thing on your mind. They came to mind for me this weekend, as I looked into my jam-packed over-full freezer in search of space for holiday-season ingredients and creations. Not an inch of space to spare. And taking up half the upper-shelf on the door? Three bags of frozen peaches. A peach trio. Solution? Quick bread!

Quick breads make an ideal year-round treat, since we can adapt them to each season’s signature ingredients. Pumpkin bread makes great sense right now, and persimmon bread is worth adding to your repertoire. Banana bread shines year-round, with chocolate chips adding some dazzle.

A peach-recipes search took me to Hostess At Heart, where this little gem served my purpose wonderfully. I love the addition of streusel topping, and I’m thinking of variations, including  chopped mango, fresh or frozen, in place of the peaches.

Here’s the chunky, spice-kissed batter, thick and luscious, studded with chunks of coarsely chopped peaches.

I made one generous loaf as the recipe suggests, but you could make a little set of mini-loafpans of peach bread, or even pour it into muffin tins for portable portions.

What lifts this pleasing quick bread to great heights is the streusel topping. It’s almost a cookie dough — flour, sugar, butter, spices, and nuts — mashed together and chilled to make it easy to crumble up. Streusel adds so much to your baking repertoire — consider making up a big batch and keeping it  on hand in the freezer, so you can enjoy it on pies, bars, muffins, and cakes. I love adding pecans and walnuts to streusel, to enhance flavor and amplify the texture.

Recipe for Quick Peach Streusel Bread from  hostessatheart.com