Strawberry Coffee Cake

To be honest, I wasn't very sure if I want to bake this seventh THB bake at first.

I must admit the series of disappointments that I get from my previous THB bakes has made me feeling a little skeptical when I see the picture of Lou's strawberry coffee cake from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas. To me, it seems like her cakes look compact and doughy with soggy wet strawberries centers. I kept telling myself that I shouldn't judge a cake by its picture... and glad that I have baked this cake because this one turned out to be a really good one!

I must confess that I have made quite a few adjustments to fine-tune this cake into the kind that I want and happy that this cake is truly strawberry-licious. My cake is not doughy at all and has a firm but moist and fluffy base to eat with the beautiful nutty and strawberry layers.

The Home Bakers is an baking event organised by my friend, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. For THB, we are baking all recipes from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas until every recipe has been baked from this book. Since my first THB bake, I'm still trying to give all my THB bakes a little retro-style. This cute strawberry cake does remind me the "retro" version of strawberry shortcake. Or maybe a little bit of white polka dots on red background will make it look a little more retro too...

This strawberry cake reminds me of my childhood fav, strawberry shortcake...

I think so...

Amazing how strawberry shortcake has evolved! 

Now back to baking... assembling the cake

Before and after baking

Comparing Lou's cake and my cake

Hurray!

Due to my tight schedule, I'm sorry that I've published this post 1 day ahead before the official day of post which is 10 August 2012.

Being the rule of this event, only the host of the chosen bake can post the recipe in her blog post. Please visit Alice from I Love. I Cook. I Bake. (after 10 Aug 2012) for the detailed recipe of this bake.

And, here are the notes and modifications that I made for my bake:

My ingredients list (which is 1/2 amount of the original recipe):

120ml sour cream
60g butter at room temperature
55g raw caster sugar
30ml milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup fresh strawberries, sliced
20g brown sugar
1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts

• To minimize soggy wet strawberries centers, I've baked a thinner cake to spread out the strawberry layer. 
• Using 1/2 of the recipe, I've baked the cake using a 15 cm x 25 cm pan at 160°C fan forced for 30 min. 
• Instead of using cream cheese, I have replaced it with sour cream for a more fluffy cake texture. 
• I've replaced granulated sugar with raw granulated sugar for extra "rustic" flavours and reduced the amount to 55g for the half amount of the recipe. The amount of sweetness is perfect for us.

my white on red polka dots, retro-looking THB logo - LOL!

Happy Baking

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