Strawberry Cake
From Michele Pallas and Penzeys in the Grand Rapids Press years ago
Ingredients
- 1½ cups All purpose flour
- 1½ tsp Baking powder
- ½ tsp Salt (drop to 1/4 teaspoon if using salted butter)
- 6 tbsp Butter softened; plus a little for greasing the pie plate
- 1 cup White sugar
- 1 large Egg
- ½ cup Milk
- 1 tsp Pure vanilla extract
- 1 lb Strawberries, cleaned, hulled & halved
- 2 tbsp Vanilla sugar (Combine 1 vanilla bean, whole or scraped, and 2 cups granulated sugar in a jar and seal tightly. Let sit for 1-2 weeks.)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Grease a 9-inch pie plate and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
- In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Reduce the mixer speed to medium-low and add the egg, milk and vanilla.
- Reduce the speed to low and gradually mix in the flour mixture.
- Pour the batter into the pie plate.
- Arrange the strawberries on top, cut sides down, as close together as possible.
- Sprinkle vanilla sugar over the top of the berries.
- Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F and bake about 1 hour, until the cake is golden brown and firm to the touch.
- Let cool in the pie plate and cut into wedges.
- Serve it plain, with whipped cream or with ice cream.