Strawberries

Seriously people, is there anything better than fresh, juicy, blood-red strawberries? For as long as I can remember, these have always been my number one favorite fruit, no contest. When I was a tiny tot, I can remember there being wild strawberries in our backyard and I would just die to get my hands on them. I would stare at them in wonder. The red fruit growing in the grass just seemed so crazy to me. They were tiny tiny little things, but they sure tasted good.

Strawberries are often a letdown for me these days. The store-bought variety always looks so promising but fails to deliver. The season is just so short here though and I can’t possibly be expected to live without strawberries for an entire year, can I? Oh the humanity.

The best strawberry I ever had was in March 2009 in LA. I was visiting Lauren and Ryan on my spring break from grad school. We went to the Hollywood Farmer’s market to stock up on dinner supplies. I sampled the biggest, reddest, juiciest strawberry I have ever had. It was glorious.  I had to bend over when I ate it so the juice wouldn’t run down my face. You would have thought I was eating a mango or something. Ah…memories…

SmittenKitchen posted this on her blog this week and of course, I had to try it immediately. My only regret is being too impatient to wait for the farmer’s market and using grocery store strawberries instead. It was still delicious, but I know it could have been 1,000 times better. Plus, I say this all the time, I just can’t seem to bake. I like to say it’s my oven, but if that were true, then I have consistently had shitty ovens (I guess that’s a possibility, given my previous living arrangements). Anyway, whenever I bake, the bottoms burn or it comes out dry. I don’t know what my problem is.

Regardless, this was still tasty, even if the bottom was a little dark and the strawberries weren’t quite as juicy as they could have been. I highly recommend it and I’ll definitely make it again with quality berries. It was really good served still a little warm, with a scoop of cookies and cream ice cream. Yum! (Thank goodness I’m working out with a trainer…)

Strawberry Summer Cake
From SmittenKitchen (adapted from Martha Stewart)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for pie plate
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pound strawberries, hulled and halved

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flower a 10-inch pie pan or 9-inch deep-dish pie pan.
Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 1 cup sugar until pale and fluffy with an electric mixer, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined. Add dry mixture gradually, mixing until just smooth. (I don’t have an electric mixture so I used my immersion blender. It was a little awkward, but it did the job. I suppose you could also try a food processor.)

Pour into prepared pie plate. Arrange strawberries, cut side down, on top of batter, as closely as possible in a single layer, overlapping slight if you need to to get them all in. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries.

Bake cake for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 325°F and bake cake until golden brown and a tester comes out free of wet batter, about 50 minutes to 60 minutes. Let cool in pan on a rack. Cut into wedges. Serve with lightly whipped cream or ice cream.