I love summer fruit season, even if it means that I sometimes end up overbuying because there are so many fantastic berries and stone fruits available that I just can't resist. Facing a recent oversupply of strawberries, I decided to make Rachel Allen's Strawberry White Chocolate Cake. Just the day before, I had made Sherry Yard's Strawberry and White Chocolate-Buttermilk Cake, another cake with white chocolate and strawberries. But to my mind, Allen's cake was a horse of a different color. Allen's cake has the strawberries baked into the batter, as well as solid white chocolate chunks. In contrast, Yard's cake incorporates melted white chocolate in the batter, and the finished cake is layered with whipped cream and strawberries.
Another reason I wanted to make Allen's strawberry cake is that the recipe was quite similar to her Coffee Mascarpone Cake that I recently made and enjoyed. Both recipes call for the same amount of butter, sugar, and flour. The differences are that the coffee cake batter includes coffee extract and three eggs, and the strawberry cake batter includes two eggs, as well as ground almonds, chopped white chocolate, and sliced fresh strawberries. Another difference between the coffee cake and the strawberry cake is that the former is baked in two small layers, while the latter is baked in a single 9-inch pan.
Recipe: "Strawberry White Chocolate Cake" from Cake by Rachel Allen.
Previous Posts:
Another reason I wanted to make Allen's strawberry cake is that the recipe was quite similar to her Coffee Mascarpone Cake that I recently made and enjoyed. Both recipes call for the same amount of butter, sugar, and flour. The differences are that the coffee cake batter includes coffee extract and three eggs, and the strawberry cake batter includes two eggs, as well as ground almonds, chopped white chocolate, and sliced fresh strawberries. Another difference between the coffee cake and the strawberry cake is that the former is baked in two small layers, while the latter is baked in a single 9-inch pan.
The recipe says to bake the cake for 50-60 minutes, and I took it out at 60 minutes, when the top was very dark -- I wish that I had tented it with foil partway through baking to prevent it from getting so dark. I dusted the top with powdered sugar in part to cover the top (even though Allen says the top is "slightly rustic and uneven... but that's part of its charm").
When I sliced the cooled cake, it was quite wet at the bottom, I think in large part because of the added moisture from so much fruit (a full pound of strawberries for a 9-inch cake). It's funny, because as I was mixing the batter for this cake, my husband Tom wandered through the kitchen and remarked how he is not particularly a fan of fruit baked into cakes for the specific reason that the fruit adversely affects the texture of the cake. Oddly, even with so much fruit, the strawberry flavor was a little washed out.
The flavor of the cake overall was pretty blah. I know it's nice to use fruit in season and all, but I think this cake might be better with freeze dried strawberries, to get more intense strawberry flavor without adding so much moisture. Especially coming after Yard's strawberry and white chocolate-buttermilk cake, this cake was a disappointment.
Recipe: "Strawberry White Chocolate Cake" from Cake by Rachel Allen.
Previous Posts:
- "Cake That's Good Any Way You Slice It: Strawberry and White Chocolate-Buttermilk Cake," July 4, 2013.
- "A Little Cake a Lot Like Tiramisu: Coffee Mascarpone Cake," June 30, 2013.
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