Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk Cake

Hey everyone,

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written any new posts. I think it’s been a combination of busyness and a tendency towards baking the same wonderful things over and over. Sorry about that…

Anyways, I am back with a brand new recipe. This time it is Joy the Baker’s Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk Cake, which you can find here: http://joythebaker.com/2012/05/roasted-strawberry-buttermilk-cake/

I am a novice to baking with strawberries. I’m not sure why, I guess I just eat them “raw”. But, it’s Father’s Day, which seems like the perfect excuse to bake something new. My own dad is anti-chocolate and lacks my sweet tooth, so a buttermilk cake seemed like a good choice for him.

Everyone loves strawberries, I hope.

A few notes- I did not have a cast iron skillet, so I used a 9 x 2 ¾” springboard pan, because it seemed closest to the thickness of a cast iron skillet. I was heartbroken to find myself skillet-less, but the springboard pan was nice in that there was hope that I’d be able to get the cake out in one piece in the end.

Here are all of the ingredients:

Roasted Strawberries

8 oz. strawberries cut in half (I quartered some of mine, though)

2 tbsp. maple syrup

1 tbsp. olive oil

Pinch of salt

2 tsp. balsamic vinegar

Buttermilk Cake

2 ½ c flour

1 tbsp. aluminum-free baking powder

½ c granulated sugar

½ tsp. salt

2 large eggs

1 ½ c buttermilk

¼ c butter melted and slightly cooled

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Roasted strawberries (see above)

3 tbsp. turbinado sugar for topping

Oven Settings: Preheat to 375º F for strawberries and turn up to 400ºF for cake.

Roasted Strawberries (originally courtesy of Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Everyday, which is a wonderful cookbook to keep around anyways)

Fully line a rimmed baking sheet- this is important so you can catch the strawberry juices.

Cut off the strawberry tops (I give mine to the chickens in my backyard; do whatever sustainable activity you would like to do with yours) and slice the strawberries in half. I cut some of mine into quarters. Regardless, they will shrink down while roasting.

In a small (i.e. cereal) bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, olive oil and salt. DO NOT added the balsamic vinegar to this mixture. I got a little too excited and did this and ended up redoing the mixture completely.

Not yet roasted, but here's an idea of how liquid-y everything should be.

Place all of your strawberries on the baking sheet and pour on the liquid mixture. Toss everything together on the sheet and place in the over for ~40 minutes. This is important- watch your strawberries closely. After 33 minutes the juices from mine had pooled over the edge of the parchment paper and had burned. You want to get everything out of the oven before this happens so you can incorporate the juices with the rest of the strawberry mixture.

Roasting

Remove from the oven before things go wrong and place back in the cereal bowl. Toss on the vinegar and set aside while you complete the cake. While you are near the oven, turn it up 25ºF.

A bad sign...

Another bad sign.

Soaking in vinegar

Buttermilk Cake

In a large bowl mix up all of your dry ingredients- flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Set aside.

In a smaller bowl (for reference I would recommend bigger than a cereal bowl), whisk together the wet ingredients. Experience has taught me that not only is it important that the butter be slightly warm, but there is such thing as too cold of buttermilk during this step. My mixture was too cold overall, and the butter kept solidifying. Lesson learned for the benefit of anyone reading this.

The butter problem.

Dump the smaller bowl contents into the large bowl and stir everything until smooth and fully combined.

Pour the cake batter into whatever pan you will be using. Add strawberry + balsamic vinegar mixture on top. A few notes: some of my strawberries were burnt. My childlike tendency to attempt to eat anything in front of me led me to the discovery that burnt roasted strawberries are horribly bitter, so I picked out the burnt parts as I was able to. I did not have the strawberry juices left over, so I mixed up a very small amount of olive oil and maple syrup (1:2 ratio) and add this on top as well. Top with sugar- I only used 1 tbsp.

Ready for the oven.

A note on this photo- I resisted playing with the filter so I could show how dark the berries are prior to baking.

Bake for 18-23 minutes. I would recommend reading Joy’s note on baking times varying according to type of pan. I will second her in pointing out that this cake bakes very fast- mine took 21 minutes, and at 18 minutes it had not seemed baked at all. As it bakes, the strawberries will slightly sink into the batter. Overall this recipe takes a bit of babysitting, so make sure you have the time and attention span for it. 

Baked, complete with sunken in strawberries.