A cake to welcome summer and the strawberry season: easy and delicious but less common, it features puréed strawberry layer running between the sponge base and cobbler-like top, with a crunchy streusel-crumble finish.
Cakes with berries
Baking a summer cake with berries usually follows a tried and tested pattern: a simple sponge batter base on which berries are arranged, and everything often is covered with a crumble. It is in fact a fruit crumble with added cake base.
It’s a lovely kind of cake, my version of which is usually baked throughout the summer, swapping various fruit as it comes into season. It’s adorable and reliable.
A slight spin on the above might involve folding fruit into the batter, hoping it doesn’t all fall to the soggy bottom. The ultimate trick to avoid said bottoms is an upside down cake, with the fruit arranged at the bottom and covered with batter; very nice it is too. Baking your cake in a loaf or Bundt tin is another option, as it narrows the bottom area keeping the fruit up in the batter.
There are also tarts, with prebaked shortcrust base and fruit arranged on top. There are pies of course, with the legendary cherry and blueberry ones. And there are also brioche or focaccia style cakes, with sweet yeast or even sourdough base covered with berries or other fruit, with or without a crumble topping. All equally delicious.
A new kind of cake
But they are the go-to berry recipes, so I was intrigued, excited and impatient to try the strawberry cake recipe by Nigella Lawson from the New York Times Cooking. It’s something different!
Strawberries are blitzed to a purée, thickened with corn flour. Batter is divided, and the purée goes over the base half, while the rest is dropped onto it like a cobbler or dumplings.
And the crumble, or rather streusel, is cleverly made with some of the reserved dry cake mix, before liquid ingredients were added.
The result is delicious, and even though the strawberry layer tends to pool around the edge, there is no sogginess.
Streusel or crumble?
Both are pretty much the same thing: a crisp topping on a cake, typically made with sugar, flour and butter. Streusel is a German term and crumble sounds more homely, but it could be because the latter also refers to the popular pudding: fruit baked under the topping, without the cakey base.
Crumble allows other ingredients, like oats or nuts, to be added to the mix, as well as spices and flavourings. Streusel, after the orderly German fashion, is strictly sugar, butter and flour usually in a 1:1:2 ratio.
How to make the strawberry purée
Use a blender or a food processor to blitz the berries with jam, but if the food processor is unavailable, strawberries very ripe and you very patient, mash them with a fork.
The addition of corn flour makes it hold a little better in the baked cake rather than seep into the base. It will still find its way down the cake somehow, which is absolutely fine.
How to make the cake batter
It can be made with a mixer but it’s just as easy to use your fingers to rub butter into the dry ingredients, like for a shortcrust pastry. Don’t forget to reserve some of that short mix for the topping.
Into the dry base the liquid ingredients are added, an egg and quite a lot of soured cream. You can swap the cream for yoghurt or buttermilk with only a small difference to the outcome.
With yoghurt or buttermilk it won’t be as rich or tangy, as those two are lower in fat. With buttermilk, the cake will be lighter but make sure you use slightly less of it as buttermilk is thinner than cream.
If you want to use Greek yoghurt on the other hand, add a little water or milk to it, to make the consistency more like soured cream.
Assembling the cake
The strawberry layer should run about through the middle of the cake but for some reason it usually turns up lower than you thought. And so make sure you use the bigger part of the batter for the base, and try to build a rim around the edge to hold the purée in place.
The remaining batter can be dropped over the strawberry layer, without the need to cover it completely; there won’t be enough to do that anyway.
And the streusel will conceal any gaps in the batter that the purée peeks through.
The cake bakes for about forty-five minutes, cools in the tin and can be served still slightly warm for delightful results. But it keeps decently well, for a couple of days in the kitchen and a couple longer when stored in the fridge.
More strawberry cake recipes
Fresh strawberry Bundt cake with yoghurt batter and mashed strawberry icing is as delicious as it is pretty. The cake batter might curdle but feel free to completely ignore it: the outcome will be successful all the same.
Classic Victoria sponge sandwich cake filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, also known as strawberry shortcake sandwich.
Strawberry crumble cake, the easiest cake batter in the world, thickly covered with fresh strawberries and finished with crunchy crumble topping. The only summer cake recipe you'll ever need.
More summer berry dessert recipes
Strawberries and whipped labneh, a healthy version of the beloved Wimbledon dessert, strawberries and cream. Labneh, thick strained yoghurt, is as delicious as cream but leaner in fat and calories.
Raspberry crumble bars with oats, brown sugar and fresh berries, the recipe is adapted from the New York 'Baked' bakery cookbook.
Frozen yoghurt blueberry flavour, with fresh blueberries, made without ice cream maker. No churn, and this frozen yoghurt has perfectly smooth texture! That’s because it is made in a mini chopper or blender that will fit into your freezer.