Strawberry Cake in September

Ok, so maybe my thinking was a little backwards when I set out to make a Strawberry Cake in the middle of September. However, in my defense, the strawberries at the grocery store were:

A) On Sale

B) Pretty darn beautiful and delicious looking

C) About to go bad in my fridge because I had failed to use them for the salad that I had originally bought them for. Shame on me.

I actually had planned on just chopping them up and throwing them on the kid's tray to eat. He would have gladly gobbled them up - he loves anything that is red in color. Tomatoes, apples, red bell peppers, cherries...if he sees one of those on the counter, he'll point and squeal until one of us grabs a paring knife, chops the red object of desire into a couple chunks, and lets him munch happily. However, when my husband came home craving cake (which happens fairly often - the guy just likes butter), I decided to use those strawberries in a more glamorous manner than being squished and gulped by a toddler.

I had been eyeing a strawberry cake recipe from Martha Stewart that was posted on Deb's blog over at Smitten Kitchen. It looked like such an easy, breezy recipe and my hubby wanted cake SOON. The preparation took less than 20 minutes and the cake itself was ready another hour after that. It was so delicious...that between the three of us it was gone in 12 hours. I may or may not have had a slice for breakfast.

And lunch.

Strawberry Cake

adapted slightly from Smitten Kitchen

6 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 pound strawberries, hulled and halved

2 tablespoons sugar in the raw

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch cake pan with at least 2-inch high sides.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat butter and granulated sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk, and vanilla until just combined. Add dry ingredients gradually, mixing just until smooth.

Scrape batter into prepared pan and place strawberries, cut side down as close together as possible all over the batter. Sprinkle berries with sugar in the raw.

Bake cake for 10 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 325 degrees and bake an additional 50-60 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack.

Resist the urge to gobble this up in one sitting. It's tough not to.