Strawberry Spoon Cake

 
 
 
 

You may have already seen this popular New York Times Cooking recipe for strawberry spoon cake by Jerrelle Guy (chocolateforbasil.com), which is—dare we say—the recipe of the summer. It's straightforward, seemingly impossible to mess up and takes less than an hour from beginning to end. Did we mention it's delicious? It's as if cobbler, cake and molten-butter-goodness had a baby. The kind of baby we'd sit for free. An easy baby that laughs at everything you say, making you the funniest person alive. This metaphor is getting weird, but you get the idea—we like it! Dak made this cake at least four times this summer. She even brought it camping, despite her partner's skepticism that she could make it before an early-morning departure. Since filming this video a week ago, Ju made it again: this time with fresh huckleberries.

We had never heard of spoon cake before, but based on our research, we think it might truly just mean that you serve the whole thing with a spoon. What these spoon cake recipes have in common is their high proportion of milk / butter to flour, giving it the dreamy texture we loved. When you take it out of the oven, it might look a little jiggly. It will firm up slightly as it sits on the counter, but hopefully not entirely. The normal signals for this-cake-is-done won't be present—if you stick a toothpick into the center, it will come out sticky. We had no idea this was the lawless dessert we needed, but here we are.It's best served fresh out of the oven with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream. If you're ready to move on to other summer fruit, try it with peaches, blackberries—you name it. —Dak and Ju

 

Ingredients

  • ½ cup unsalted butter (1 stick), melted, plus more for greasing the pan

  • About 1 cup fresh, hulled strawberries (frozen and thawed works too!)

  • ⅔ cup packed light brown sugar

  • ½ cup whole milk, at room temperature

  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour

  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

  • Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, for serving (optional, but highly recommended)

 

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8-inch (square or round) baking dish with butter. Set aside.

  2. Using your hands or the back of a fork, place berries in a bowl and mash them to release all their juices. Stir in 1/3 cup of the brown sugar and set aside.

  3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, remaining 1/3 cup brown sugar, milk and salt, then add the flour and baking powder and continue whisking just until the batter is smooth. Transfer the batter (it’s not much) to the greased baking dish, and spread evenly into corners.

  4. Spoon the strawberries and all their juices over the top of the cake batter. Place in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or just when a toothpick comes out clean in the center. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 3 to 5 minutes before spooning into bowls. Serve warm with ice cream.

    **This recipe can be adapted to be dairy free and gluten free if you need- simply sub a 1-1 gluten free flour mix and/or non-dairy substitutes of your choice!

Makes about 4 servings