strawberry cake.

This strawberry cake is my new love. Born purely from inspiration. And I am so excited it came out well!

Let me explain the origination of this perfect summer cake.

I was drinking strawberry kefir from the bottle (my only method of drinking kefir for whatever reason) and staring at my fridge one day when I came home starving from work, and I noticed a container of cherry pie filling from some ice cream I recently made at home.

see the pink of the kefir?

just look at those strawberries! gorgeous produce.

And inspiration hit me! I had been planning on making a cake (why? mostly because i felt like it, partly because i had just finished reading about harry's golden snitch birthday cake in my effort to reread/re-remember the 7th book), and seeing lots of berry things - strawberry kefir, cherry pie filling, fresh strawberries - I thought I'd incorporate it all into a layer cake.

But the cherries were weird & out of place and felt artificial next to the homey kefir and from-the-earth berries, so they were ditched, and strawberry cake was born.

It was absolutely, mind-blowingly delicious!

The cake part (not the frosting so much) is healthy. I used my usual vanilla cake base, but substituted strawberry kefir for the buttermilk. And added in a few other little touches. The cake was moist, and it not only smelled deliciously of strawberries, but it had great strawberry flavor! That's hard to do, especially since I did not add strawberry puree or anything. The frosting was completely my own concoction. It was a nice backdrop for the cake & did not overwhelm the star of the masterpiece at all - the fresh, strawberry flavor.

I brought some in to work, and they loved it. So much so that I am now probably baking something like every week .. that's no problem with me.

remainder, ~ 1 hour after assembly.

I urge you to make this now. Please, I am begging! I added tips below, if you cannot access some of the ingredients.

Strawberry Cake

recipe by Yatee (myself). 
tip: if you cannot find strawberry kefir, try using 3/4 cup strawberry yogurt + 1/4 cup milk mixed together.

• 1 1/3 cups flour (I used half ww, half white)
• 1/2 tspn baking soda
• 1/2 tspn baking powder
• 1/4 tspn salt
• 2 Tb soft or melted, unsalted butter or ghee
• 2 Tb neutral oil, like canola
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tspn vanilla extract
• 1 Tb strawberry preserves, optional
• 1 cup strawberry kefir (if unavailable, look at my tip underneath the title above)
• 1/3 cup washed chopped strawberries
• extra strawberries, optional (for decoration)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 325 F, if using convection. Spray two round 8" or 9" cake pans.
2. Mix the dry ingredients - flour - salt.
3. Cream the butter, sugar, and oil, till everything is thoroughly mixed.
4. Add the egg, vanilla, and preserves, if using. Beat well, till creamy.
5. Alternate adding the dry mixture and kefir, starting and ending with the dry mixture.
6. (This is how to do step five - Add a third of the dry mix. Stir. Add half the kefir. Stir. Add half of remaining dry mix. Stir. Add remaining kefir. Stir. Add remaining flour. Stir.)
7. Fold in fresh chopped strawberries. Pour batter into greased pans.
8. Bake about 13-20 minutes. Let rest till pans have cooled enough to hold. Invert the cake out onto a cooling rack, right side up. Let cool completely. Then frost & stack.

For frosting - add about 1/8 - 1/4 tspn cinnamon to my Basic Cream Cheese Frosting recipe. There will be a perfect amount of frosting with which to cover this cake.