Strawberry Cake with Fresh Strawberries

My birthday, my cake! And I decided to bake myself a strawberry cake. After all it is only my cake that I can perform my experiments on. Cakes for others better be the tried and tested ones. We do not want any mishaps with someone else’s cakes.

I had a box full of strawberries and today I had decided to bake myself a cake. It had to be something different from what I usually made – not the vanilla, chocolate, marble, jam sponge or even the all time favourite juicy pineapple cake. It had to be strawberries. Question was how to go about it.

A little bit of research on strawberry cakes gave me the basic idea. All I had to do was adapt my basic cake recipe to the strawberry version.

This is a cake I have made literally from scratch with no artificial flavouring. Even the vanilla essence used here is homemade using vanilla beans (buy vanilla beans here)

Result? It turned out better than what I had expected. Okay, the colour may not be the perfect pink but I don’t mind that.

Ingredients:

For the cake

• Maida -1 cup
• Almond powder – 2tbps (optional)
• Baking powder – 1tsp
• Eggs – 2 (separated)
• Oil – 1/2 cup
• Sugar – 1/4 cup
• Strawberry jam crush 4tbsp
• Vanilla essence 1tsp

For jam crush

• Strawberry chopped 3cups
• Sugar 1/2 cup

For buttercream icing

• Unsalted butter – 1 cup
• Powdered sugar – 1 cup
• Jam crush – 3 tbsp

Method

First let us prepare the jam crush.

Place the strawberries and sugar in a heavy bottom dish and set to cook on a slow flame. Soon the sugar will melt and you will begin to see a rich red coloured jam taking shape.

Let the jam cook for about half an hour to forty-five minutes.

The quantity will be almost half of the original and the strawberries will be mushy soft.

I have mashed the strawberries in my recipe while still hot. You can allow it to cool down and then run it in a blender. This will give you a smooth jam with no strawberry pieces.

Now let us prepare the cake

Sieve the maida and baking together and set aside.

Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius.

Grease and dust an 8 inch round cake tin.

In a large mixing bowl add the egg whites, vanilla essence and sugar. Using an electric mixer, whisk the ingredients till light and fluffy.

Add the oil and whisk again to get a smooth and fluffy mix.

Add the egg yolks and whisk for a minute.

Take a wooden spatula to mix the maida. Add the maida in two to three batches ensuring even mixing between every batch.

When the maida is well incorporated add the strawberry jam crush. Mix evenly but do not over mix.

Pour the batter in the prepared tin and allow to bake for around 30 minutes.

Do the skewer test to check for doneness.

Allow the cake to cool completely.

Now let us prepare the buttercream icing

Whisk the butter till light and fluffy. Add the sugar bit by bit till the butter is stiff and spreadable.

Mix the jam mix till well incorporated.

The final assembly

Slice the cake in half. Spread one third of the buttercream mix on the bottom half of the cake.

Sandwich both slices together and spread the remaining buttercream on the cake and the sides.

Notes:

• The sugar in the cake can be increased to half a cup if you want it sweeter. I have taken one fourth of a cup keeping in mind the jam crush to be added.
• Allow the cake to cook completely before applying the buttercream. Eve
  n a slightly warm cake can cause the butter to melt.
• The flour (maida) only needs to be folded into the egg mix. Over mixing will kill all the bubbles in the batter.