Strawberry Cake - Baking Partner's Challenge

This month's Baking partner's Challenge was thrown to us by Divya Ashok of "Divya's Diner".This recipe was very moist and tasty. While preparing the batter, I literally licked the dough. It was that tasty. I couldn't take pictures properly,as they vanished in minutes. Finally, I was left with a single slice.Try this tasty strawberry cake. You fall in love soon.

Recipe adapted from : America’s Test Kitchen

Ingredients:

For the Cake :
1 cup + 2 tablespoons of Cake flour
2 teaspoons of Baking powder
½ teaspoon of Salt
¾ cup + 1 tablespoon of Sugar
6 tablespoons of Unsalted butter
2 large Eggs (or 3 large egg whites) or 1/2 cup yogurt
¼ cup of  the strawberry puree:
1 teaspoon of Vanilla extract
½ teaspoon Strawberry extract

For the Strawberry puree:
1 lbs(454g)  of very ripe fresh Strawberries (frozen strawberries without sugar)
1 tablespoon of Sugar

Method:
• Wash and hull fresh ripe strawberries. Cut it in to small pieces and transfer it to a bowl. Add a tablespoon of sugar and give a quick mix. Cover it and allow it to sit for 2-3 hours/ overnight in the refrigerator. Strawberries will become tender and juicy. I kept it for 2 hours. Cook the strawberries, with the sugar ,till it becomes, tender.

• Simmer the tender strawberries in a pan with ¼ cup of water for 20-25 mins in low flame. (Taking care not to burn any). Mash it well with a spatula and allow it to cool. Transfer the contents to the blender with ¼ cup of water and puree the cooked strawberries. Filter the puree to remove any chunky pieces. Again bring the filtered puree to the stove and slow cook it in low flame for another 15 mins. Reduce the puree to 1/4 cup.

 

• Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease (butter/shortening) and dust (flour) two 6” pans. (I have halved the recipe and made it in two 6” pans). Take required butter, cut them in to pieces and allow them to sit at room temperature. Since it is the month of purattasi, I skipped eggs and replaced with 1/2 cup of yogurt. 

Wet ingredients:
In a small bowl, take ¼ cup of cooked strawberry puree and add ¼ cup of milk, yogurt and whisk it. Add vanilla extract & strawberry extract.

Dry ingredients:

• In a large mixing bowl, sift cake flour. If you cant find cake flour, substitute with all purpose flour (APF) and corn starch. Add baking powder and salt. Mix it slowly in a stand mixer with paddle attachment or with a hand held mixer. Toss in softened butter and continue mixing till you get ‘bread crumbs’ like texture. 

Slowly add the wet ingredients mixture little by little and the cake batter is ready.  This is going to be the color of the cake once baked and its not going to turn pink. So if you want the cake to look pink, add few drops of beet juice or pink food color.

Pour the batter equally in to two prepared pans. The mixture will not be runny and it will be difficult to spread.Bake it at 350 degrees for 25-30 mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Once done, remove the pans from the oven and let it sit in the counter for 10 mins. Once it is cooled, torte the cake, fill the strawberry puree. Frost it with a dallop of whipped cream and enjoy.

Linking this to Swathi's "Baking Partner's challenge".