Baking cake in quarantine is tricky. We’ve got all the time in the world to experiment but fewer people to share with. Typically, a generous wedge beautifully wrapped and left outside a neighbor’s front door would be met with enthusiasm. These days, you might as well be delivering anthrax.
Yes, you can freeze leftovers. I have several pieces of chocolate olive oil cake stored away right now after the What We Eat crew forbid me from throwing away the excess. But I just can’t imagine being quite as excited to eat a thawed sliced. Let me eat freshly baked cake.
Nevertheless, this week I couldn’t stop daydreaming about some sort of barely sweet snacking cake studded with jammy berries. It would be a cake I could enjoy as dessert with whipped cream but could almost pass for a reasonable breakfast. In short, a cake I wouldn’t feel horrible finishing in a few days.
Here is the result. I’ve made it twice already, varying the flours and fruit. I’m guessing you could also switch up the fat, opting for butter or coconut oil instead of the olive oil used here though I haven’t tried that yet. Its a flexible little thing.
Hope everyone is holding in there. It was another tough week in the news. My mantra is: This will end; life will get back to normal. It will.
Ingredients
- 1 lb strawberries, hulled and halved (OR mix in blueberries and/or raspberries- I think I preferred the one I made with a strawberry-blueberry mix)
- 1.5 cups AP flour (190 g)
- ¾ cup granulated sugar (150 g) + 3 tbsp for topping berries, divided
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp cinnamon or cardamom (optional)
- 1/2 cup plain, whole milk yogurt (130 g)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract OR 1 tsp almond extract
- 2 large eggs
- 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (~85 g) OR melted butter or coconut oil
** Note: This is a lightly sweetened cake. Increase the sugar in the cake up to 1 cup sugar if you think you’d enjoy a more traditionally sweet cake.
Method
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-in cake pan with parchment paper, butter and flour, tapping out the excess flour. Hull and halve the strawberries and toss with a pinch of salt and 1 tbsp of the sugar for topping the strawberries.
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl: flour(s), granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, kosher salt and cinnamon or cardamom if you’d like.
Whisk the wet ingredients except the olive oil together in a second medium bowl: whole milk yogurt, vanilla extract and eggs.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk just until incorporated. Using a spatula, fold in the olive oil.
Pour batter into the cake pan, then tightly pack in all the strawberries. It will probably seem like you have too many; just double up the strawberries here and there. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tbsp sugar atop the strawberries.
Bake for 10 minutes at 350, then decrease to 325 and continue baking for 55-60 minutes until the top of the cake is golden brown and a tester comes out free of batter. The strawberries will be jammy/moist but that’s what you want. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack. Serve as is with tea or coffee. A little whipped cream, ice cream or dollop of honey or maple-syrup sweetened whole milk plain yogurt wouldn’t be a bad accompaniment either.