Strawberry Summer Cake
I know I’ve said it several times in the past few weeks but I really don’t understand how people with complicated lives can have a puppy. On the plus side, I reach my step goal every day just by parading Maple in and out of the apartment when she needs (or think she needs) to go to the bathroom. She turned 12 weeks old yesterday and we are looking forward to her next growth spurt that will be accompanied by more long term bladder control.
I went a little overboard last week when buying strawberries at the market and it quickly became clear that we weren’t going to be able to eat them fast enough. Then I came across this easy and incredibly delicious Smitten Kitchen recipe for a simple strawberry cake, as if Deb from Smitten Kitchen knew my strawberry woes. While it was warm when I made this, I’m not so sure I can call it a summer cake quite yet; it snowed here (briefly) on both Saturday and Sunday!
In addition to being a wonderful cake this has the extra benefit of filling your home with the smell of strawberries. The cake batter is a bit thicker than most and so it takes slightly longer to bake. During that time the strawberries are melting into this incredibly soft and sugary state; they come out tasting like strawberries baked into a pie.
We devoured this cake over the course of just a few days, originally I had planned to freeze half of it but it quickly became clear that wasn’t necessary. A great treat for us to have after another long day with Maple!
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1½ cups AP flour
- 1½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅔ cup sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 pound strawberries, washed, hulled, and halved
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 10-inch pie pan or cast iron skillet (what I used).
- Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter and 1 cup sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined. Add dry mixture gradually, mixing until just smooth.
- Pour into prepared pie plate. Arrange strawberries, cut side down, on top of batter, as closely as possible in a single layer.
- Bake cake for 10 minutes at 350°F then reduce oven temperature to 325°F and bake cake until golden brown and a tester comes out free of wet batter, about 50 minutes to 60 minutes.
- Let cool in pan on a rack.
