Married to the Empire

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Best strawberry cake EVER

Ruf's birthday is tomorrow. Because it's just the two of us, a birthday cake at home isn't the most practical thing. Instead, we had birthday cake with the youth group tonight. I baked a cake and a half. I had the traditional two-layer round cake, but naturally, I forgot to take a picture of it before it was devoured. I also baked half a cake in an 8x8 inch square pan so that we'd be sure to have enough. I only managed to get a picture of that one, and it's mostly gone.

A thank-you to my friend Judy for finding this recipe for me. Ruf asks for strawberry cake every year, and this is the first recipe that we've both been extremely happy with. I'm not fond of the ones that involve jello in the batter or have whipped cream for icing, and this recipe avoids both of those common strawberry cake ingredients.

Strawberry Cake
Use fresh strawberries to decorate the top of this decadent cake.
Serves 12
• 2 cups unbleached organic flour*
• 1 cup natural cane sugar
• 1 TB baking powder
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup unsalted organic butter, melted
• 1 cup pureed strawberries, fresh or frozen, thawed
• 1/2 cup organic milk

Icing
• 1 box powdered sugar
• 4 TB unsalted organic butter, melted
• 4–6 TB puréed fresh or frozen strawberries
• fresh strawberries for decoration
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter (or spray) and flour 2 9-inch round cake pans or one 9x13 cake pan. Set aside. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, beat remaining ingredients together. Add to dry, beating with a wire whisk. Pour into prepared cake pans. Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes or until done when tested with a toothpick.
To make the frosting, sift powdered sugar into melted butter. Add strawberry purée to spreading consistency. Frost the cake and decorate the top of the cake with fresh strawberries just before serving.
* If desired, you may substitute part of the unbleached flour with whole wheat pastry flour or white wheat flour
Nutrition Info
Per Serving (140g-wt.): 410 calories (120 from fat), 13g total fat, 8g saturated fat, 1g dietary fiber, 5g protein, 71g carbohydrate, 100mg cholesterol, 350mg sodium

What one layer of the cake looks like:



What the cake plate looked like after the youth devoured the pretty cake I forgot to take a picture of:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, thanks! I think I may have finally found a decent organic strawberry cake recipe. It seems everything else I find online are trashy recipes with toxic ingredients like Jello! I hope it's good. I do have one question. How much powdered sugar for the icing? How many cups?

Anne Marie@Married to the Empire said...

Hi! I'm with you on not wanting cakes with jello or other junk. (It's unbelievable how many strawberry cake recipes use jello instead of the actual fruit!) It took me a few years to find just the right recipe. This cake is a little dense, but it's very tasty!

It calls for a box of powdered sugar, which is 1 lb. here. I don't really know how many cups that comes out to, as I haven't measured it. Wish I could be more helpful.