You can very much prepare this strawberry cake in the quickest and easiest way ever. This cake, which has 500g/1 lb of strawberries both inside and outside, is a fantastic way to use fresh strawberries throughout their season! You'll adore the subtle lemon flavor and how moist the crumb is thanks to the yogurt.
No creaming butter, no stand mixer. Just a wooden spoon and a single bowl!
Strawberry cake
The recipe for a pink sponge cake with pink frosting that is made completely with real strawberries, without any trickery, has been in the works for three years.
For now, though, enjoy this recipe for the easiest cake you've ever made that is loaded with fresh strawberries: the cake you make with all those strawberries!
No cheating means not using fancy ingredients like freeze-dried strawberries, food coloring, or strawberry flavoring.
Unlike delicate sponge cakes made with creamed butter, the cake's crumb is kept deliciously moist for days thanks to the yogurt and oil-based batter, which also provides it enough structure to withstand the weight and copious amounts of fluids that the strawberries release.
Though not as delicate as classic butter and sponge cakes, the crumb is nevertheless incredibly soft. If you'd want to read reviews from individuals who have tried it (spoiler alert: it's good!), I used it for this Lemon Yogurt Cake and this Blueberry Cake.
What goes in Strawberry Cake
• Strawberries – 500g/1 lb to be exact! Some goes in the cake, most goes on top
• Flour, sugar, egg, baking powder, vanilla, salt – all the usual suspects in cakes
• Lemon:The zest of fresh lemon complements berry-based pastries wonderfully! Evidence -> Blueberry Lemon Loaf, Blueberry Cheesecake Bars, Strawberry Cheesecake; and
Oil and yogurt or sour cream – as noted above, this is what keeps the crumb really moist as well as adding a touch of tang, reinforcing the brightness we get from the lemon.
How to make this easy Strawberry Cake
This is a one-bowl, hand-mixed batter because creamed butter isn't included. Mix the dry ingredients in after whisking the wet ones.
I was a little excited about this at first, but the strawberries made the batter so wet and weighed it down so much that it took an hour and forty minutes to cook! A small amount of the strawberries should be inside the cake. Most end up on top; they maintain their shape very well but ooze juice when you bite into them.
I'm so unoriginal that the first thing I think of when I see baked goods with strawberries is cream. For me, serving must include a (large!) dollop of freshly whipped cream.
However, I recently served it warm with ice cream and it was so delicious that I had to show off my crazy side. Like most cakes, this one has a slightly "pudding-like" interior while still warm from the oven, which is why most cake recipes strongly advise you to wait and let the cake cool completely before cutting into it.
However, the "pudding-like" texture of this Strawberry Cake combined with the warm strawberries somehow improved the taste experience. Particularly when I dropped that (risky! experimental!) scoop of ice cream on the side.
