“This is so cool! Listen to this: Potatoes, sunflower oil, and salt. That’s all!”

My husband was really excited. I stared at him from across the booth at Jason’s Deli, no doubt a little puzzled at the time. He was reading the ingredients on a bag of potato chips and was completely blown away that the manufacturer was only selling us potato chips in our bag of potato chips.

I was a little surprised myself. Ingredient labels on packaged foods can sometimes be a little daunting – and sometimes extremely disappointing (cough Central Market and their pistachio-less Pistachio Muffins cough).

I’m most definitely not anti-packaged foods. I always have a couple boxes of Duncan Hines cake mix in my pantry. There’s nothing worse than being wide awake at 1am and having nothing sweet to munch on or getting smacked with a chocolate craving when the weather is too bad to leave the house. French Vanilla cupcakes, straight out of the oven, are the best! And your house still smells wonderful when you come downstairs the next day. That being said, I do mostly bake from scratch because it’s fun.

You know, “fun” to realize that you don’t have enough sugar, “fun” to get started and realize that there is actually an over-night step involved, or “fun” to realize that what you thought was a box of cake flour in the bottom drawer of the pantry was actually a misplaced box of Lucky Charms. You know. “Fun.”

I want to share with you my absolute most favorite recipe for homemade strawberry cake. For some reason, good from-scratch strawberry cake recipes are really hard to find. There are a wealth of recipes that use strawberry-flavored jello, strawberry extract, and a boxed cake mix but what if you want to make a cake to put a dent in that gallon bag of strawberries you have in the freezer?

If you ask me, strawberries just might be the world’s most perfect fruit. Well, pretty darn perfect as long as they’re ripe and clean Decadent enough to be considered dessert on their own, they most certainly don’t need artificially flavored Jello and food coloring to bring out the best in them.

If you are still looking for a good, completely-from-scratch strawberry cake without Yellow No. 5 and Red No. 6, this should go on the top of your must-try list. The cake is nice and moist, has a prominent strawberry flavor, and it’s pink! From nothin‘ but strawberries.

Katie’s Strawberry Cake
3/4 cup strawberry puree, room temperature (follows)
1/4 cup milk, at room temperature
6 large egg whites, room temperature
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup cake flour, sifted
1 3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened (not melted)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 8 inch pans: line outside with heavy duty foil (I used Bake Even strips) and spray inside with baking spray with flour.

In small bowl, combine puree, milk, egg, vanilla and mix with fork until well blended. In bowl of stand mixer, add sifted flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix to combine. Continue beating at slow speed and add butter. Mix until combined and resembling moist crumbs.

Add liquids and beat at medium speed for about 1 minute or until full and evenly combined. Stop mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl and hand beat for 30 more seconds. Divide the batter evenly among the pans and smooth tops.

Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (time will vary). Let cakes rest in pan for about 10 minutes and turn out onto wire racks. Let cakes cool completely (about 2 hours).

Source: Good Things Catered, adapted from Cook’s Illustrated Classic White Layer Cake
Yields: 2 8-inch layers

Strawberry puree
24oz frozen organic strawberries, thawed*

Thaw frozen strawberries in whatever form (sliced, whole, etc) and in whatever container/bag you have them in. Pour into a fine strainer placed over a bowl and let sit. Lightly toss the strawberries occasionally to remove any pockets of excess liquid. Reserve the liquid for another use or discard. Place strawberries in a food processor or blender and puree.

* You most certainly can use non-organic and you can use fresh strawberries if you don’t have a stash of frozen strawberries in your freezer. Just hull, slice and toss with a teaspoon or two of sugar and cover. Let them sit at room temperature for a couple of hours, or until nice and juicy. Place strawberries in a food processor or blender and puree.

Use leftover puree to fill the cake or fold into the frosting, if desired. It’s also fabulous spooned over ice cream… and eaten straight with a spoon.

Yields: Approx 1 1/4 cup strawberry puree

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