Strawberry Cake

I was feeling restless again, and this time I had a whole punnet of strawberries sitting in the fridge. I've been wanting to try my hand at strawberry cakes for quite a while now, and so I baked a whole strawberry cake from scratch.

It's currently sitting in the kitchen, cooling on a wire rack. I'm going to leave it to cool overnight cos it's simply too late to wait for it to cool before storing it. I did cut out a small piece to try, and it's.. uh.... well I'm not actually a cake person ^^;; So I can't really say. It's dense though. It isn't a very pink thing, as I didn't put any food colouring in it (not that I had any food colouring anyway) and looks pretty natural. The colour is sort of a slightly pinkish beige.

I can't find the written version of the recipe now. It's disappeared somewhere in the kitchen... But since I just made it, I still remember ^_^ So! The recipe:

Strawberry Cake (from scratch)
Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup pureed strawberries
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup organic milk

1) Preheat the oven to 180C (although 175C would be better if you can manage) and butter then flour two 8" round pans (I used only one 9" round pan).
2) Mix the first 4 ingredients in a large bowl.
3) In another bowl, whisk the remaining 4 ingredients together. I don't think there's a set order in which the ingredients are to be mixed in, but I first put in the pureed strawberries, then milk, then butter, then eggs.
4) Pour the liquids into the flours and whisk into a batter.
5) Pour into the cake pans.
6) Bake for 30-35mins or until it passes the toothpick test. Since I was using only one pan, I had to bake it for 45mins before it was done.

After that you can cool it on a wire rack. The website I got it from gives a few recipes for icing (and also a few recipes for strawberry cake) but I didn't have anymore strawberries after pureeing them, so I didn't bother with icing. Oh, for reference, I got the recipe from here.

As to the strawberries, you may use fresh or frozen, but if you're using frozen strawberries, thaw them before you puree them. I couldn't find the small blender my flatmate has, so I pureed them by hand. It was rather tedious, but somewhat calming hehe. All I had to do was grate each strawberry against a Japanese mortar (luckily I haven't used mine very often at all, so there aren't any leftover scents from previous foods). I ended up squashing the strawberries into a pulp with my fingers when most of it was gone, but I still ended up leaving any white parts of the strawberries behind and only using the red parts. It was a messy ordeal and now one of my pyjama shirts has a couple of pink strawberry stains on it! D:

I still don't know if I'd recommend using this recipe or not, but I honestly think that in this case, icing is something that makes a difference. *shrugs* Oh well... Since Mel and I are going for a picnic tomorrow (or so we hope... Weather forecast says it'll rain D:), I thought I'd cut a few small slices and pack it up in my pink bento boxes. I guess I'll also heat up and pack my leftovers from dinner (creamy garlic and basil mashed potato! Yummy, especially since I used chopped fresh basil rather than dried basil). I also have a couple of boiled eggs leftover from brunch... I'm definitely going to have to find a few uses for that!

I hope the weather'll be accomodating >___<"" We're planning to meet in Chinatown at 12pm, then we'll buy some cakes and pastries and tea (maybe some beer too) then we'll go to Piccadilly Circus (i.e. Japan Centre) to buy sushi and maybe sake. I can't wait!

Okay it's really late now, and I gotta wake up early tomorrow to shower and pack all the foodstuff. G'night!