Recipe for Easy Strawberry Cake

There is a small outbreak in our Indian food blogging community. Of the Smitten Kitchen Strawberry cake. It is catching the fancy of many a food-blogger who chances upon on a punnet of fresh strawberries. And some like me go in search of strawberries so we can bake this devastatingly beautiful cake. I saw this first posted by Magic Marinade and then Haathitime made it, and then Monika and then many others, I'm sure.

Also, my KitchenAid 7 speed hand mixer, that I won as a prize from KitchenAid India for the Xmas Baking Recipe contest (my entry), came in last week. I was waiting for something special to inaugurate it. And this strawberry cake was just perfect to get this hand-mixer whirring. It works like a dream, almost like the BMW of hand mixers :) And this is not the last you are hearing about it on the blog.

Back to the recipe, this cake is proof that I'm a girl who wont take directions. The blog clearly mentioned that the recipe doesn't sit well in a smallish tin and yet I took out this smallish tin, because I felt like it. And the result was that the batter rose well above the berries, burying them somewhat. Buried berries. LOL. But every cloud has a silver lining and so on and so forth. So my cake, while not having the ruby strawberries studding the top, they had this intense, oozy, beautiful (permit me three adjectives here, the situation is totally deserving of this) strawberry jam on the inside, that burst into every bite of cake. And the huge crystals of sugar, mostly stayed on the top, forming this crunchy crust giving way to a soft melt in mouth cake inside. So yes, if you have only an 8" round baking tin, this cake is still worth trying :)

Also, SmittenKitchen mentioned that you can use part barley flour, and it blends perfectly into this cake, without screaming "alternate flour". I used Jowar flour (sorghum), as I had bought a bag of this to experiment with gluten free baking and trust me, I couldn't even tell that this cake had anything but all purpose flour in it, it was so light!

The cake slices better after cooling. But, if you are impatient like me (read cake-lover), you are totally forgiven for diving into this cake as soon as it is out of the oven and get your tongue burnt by the molten strawberry lava within.

TL;DR: If you find fresh strawberries, this is the one cake to try.

• RECIPE FOR STRAWBERRY CAKE
• Makes 8 large slices
• Ingredients
• 6 tbsp~85 grams unsalted butter (at room temperature, soft)
• 1 cup castor sugar +2 tbsp
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup maida (all purpose flour)
• 1/2 cup jowar flour* (sorghum flour)
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
• 300 grams fresh strawberries, hulled & halved horizontally

Directions

Prepare a 9 inch round baking pan with baking paper or butter and flour it and keep aside.

Preheat oven at 180°C.

With an electric hand mixer, beat the sugar (1 cup) and butter for 3-4 minutes until pale and creamy. If your granulated sugar has very big granules (like we get in India), it is worthwhile, running it in the mixer (mixie) for a few seconds, just to break down the granule size and then proceeding with the recipe.

Add the egg and beat for another 30 seconds.

Whisk in the milk and vanilla extract.

Sieve all the dry ingredients and add into the wet ingredients. Mix until just combined, or blend with hand mixer for a brief 20-30 seconds.

Scrape out the batter into the prepared baking pan.

Place the strawberries in a single layer on the top, cut side down. Sprinkle the 2 tbsp of sugar on top of the strawberries.

Bake at 180°C (in preheated oven) for 10 minutes, after which reduce the temperature to 175°C and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean (don't mind the strawberry jam sticking to the tester).

Allow to cool completely before slicing. Or not :)

*By all means use all purpose flour fully, instead of using any alternate flours. In that case, it will be 1.5 cups maida (all purpose flour) and no jowar flour.

Check out Magic Marinade's Winter Strawberry Cake Movement compilation here.