Spring means strawberries, loads of strawberries, like those that bought our dear Daddy some days ago. He came home with a whole flat, or crate, of strawberries, which means eight pints, more than two kilos, five pounds, I’m not sure, but in any case far more strawberries than three people can eat before they turn overripe or even rotten. I can’t blame him, though. He’s the last of six brothers and was used to see his mom buy huge quantities of food. Anyway, my first thought was to use some of those beatiful red strawberries in a cake and, since I also had some fresh ricotta in the fridge, I opted for the same recipe I had already experimented with these marble plumcakes.
Ingredients:
400 g (14 oz)
strawberries
250 g (9 oz) ricotta cheese
300 g (10 1/2 oz) plain flour
130 g (4 1/2 oz) castor sugar
150 ml (5 fl oz) milk
100 ml (3 1/2 fl oz) sunflower seed oil or other vegetable oil of your choice
2 tsp baking powder
lemon zest
a pinch od vanilla powder
Directions:
- Rinse strawberries under cool water and cut them in pieces and set aside six or seven for decoration.
- Mix ricotta, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla powder in a bowl, pour milk, oil and and then flour and baking powder. Add also the strawberry chunks and mix delicately again.
- Prepare your pan with parchment paper or non-stick spray and pour in the batter.
- Decorate with the remaining strawberries cut in halves.
- Bake in pre-heated oven at 180°C/350°F for 50 minutes, let cool and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar if you like.
Unfortunately, my photos are worse than usual this time, beacause, at a first glance, the cake seemed not nice enough to me to be posted on the blog, but, after I tasted it, I changed my mind and took the pictures in a hurry, before going out for the afternoon. I prefer by far a good recipe with a mediocre picture rather than the opposite. Yes, ok, a good recipe with a good photo would be surely better, but I still have to work very hard on it, so I must rely on your imagination.
This cake is soft, slightly moist, dense, flavourful and, yet, it contains no egg and no butter. Even my little daughter, who is a very picky eater, ate a big slice for breakfast and then asked for more!
I would be really glad to read your comments, your opinions, your questions, doubts, suggestions and anything you’d like to share. See you soon for another recipe.
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sarà ottima!
Grazie, Luisa!