Strawberry Cake – Spelt Flour

Sue Maree P -

Summer goodness in one cake. My strawberry tea cake is a pretty, simple and fresh cake perfect for an afternoon tea party. Simple ingredients, strawberries, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk and yoghurt. A wonderfully moist and light cake that is versatile and can be adapted to use any seasonal fruits you may have on hand. I have used white Spelt flour from Sharpham Park as this is my preferred alternative flour, but it would also work well with almond flour, gluten free flour, plain flour or self-raising flour.

Ingredients

  • White Spelt Flour / Plain – 250g / about 2 cups
  • Unsalted butter (room temperature) – 115g / 1 stick / about 1/2 cup
  • Castor sugar – 100g / about 1/2 cup
  • Light Brown Sugar – 100g about 1/2 cup
  • Baking powder – 2 tsp
  • Vanilla extract – 1 tsp
  • Large Eggs – 2
  • Milk – 3 tbsp
  • Greek Yoghurt / sour cream –190g / about 3/4 cup
  • Sugar – 1 tbsp before baking (optional– I forgot this in my video)
  • Hulled halved fresh Strawberries (washed and rested on paper towel) – 200g / about 1 cup + extra for serving
  • Icing sugar – dusting as you serve

Method

  1. PREHEAT - oven 160˚C fan / 180˚C. Grease and line the base and sides of a 23cm /9inch spring form cake tin, or a square cake tin,  a 26cm/ 10 inch pie dish would work too.
  2. MIX in a jug – yoghurt and milk and set aside.
  3. WHISK – flour, salt and baking powder.
  4. WHIP – butter and sugar with the paddle attachment or with your handheld electric beater
  5. ADD eggs one at a time to the sugar and butter mixture, add a little flour to avoid curdling.
  6. COMBINE on a low speed add vanilla then alternating with flour and yoghurt milk mixture until incorporated.
  7. REMOVE from the stand and pour into your prepared tin
  8. ARRANGE your prepared halved strawberries (with the stems removed) cut side down starting on the outside edge with the tip of the strawberry facing out. (watch the video for step by step instructions)
  9. BAKE – 45-50mins until golden brown and test with a cake skewer before removing.
  10. SPRINKLE with icing sugar to serve once the cake has cooled down.
  11. SERVE with extra fresh strawberries, cream and or ice cream.

Baking Tips

  • Flour – if you'd prefer to use Self raising flour omit the baking powder
  • Sugar – you could use all castor sugar instead of brown sugar if you don't have any on hand
  • Tin – this recipe could be baked in various shapes, but you would need to adjust the timing. A 26cm - flan will take less time, a loaf tin may take 1 hour & 10 mins.
  • Fruit – if strawberries aren't in season you could swap out and use other fruits on top, like peaches, plum, apricots, raspberries.