Strawberry Cake for Valentine's Day!

Yippee it's the weekend!

This week there are lots of Valentine's Parties going on so I am sharing a recipe for a heart-shaped strawberry cake.

I love strawberries and we seem to have an abundance of them at the moment and they are so sweet and juicy. 

I had so many at one stage though, that I knew I had to eat them quickly or they would go, well, yucky. So I tried to find some recipes for a strawberry cake but they all required packet cake mix and strawberry jello mix and I had neither of these things. Finally I just adapted a recipe I already had for a banana cake and here it is...

First, I preheated the oven to 325F/170C degrees. I wanted to use my heart shaped tin so I lined it with baking paper and sprayed it with just a little bit of oil. I placed about 2 cups of strawberries that had been cleaned and hulled in a microwave safe dish with 1/4 cup of water and zapped them for about 2 minutes on medium heat. These measurements are not accurate because I used a very large punnet of strawberries that I purchased from the markets a few days before.

I then put 3 cups self-rising wholemeal flour, 3/4 cup white chocolate chips and 1cup of white sugar in a mixing bowl with 1/2cup of vegetable oil and mixed these ingredients together.  When the strawberries had cooled down a little I added those to the mixture along with 3 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract and 4 large beaten organic eggs. After mixing everything together I poured the batter into the tin.

Just look at this sweet and yummy pink goodness!

I baked the cake in the middle rack for about 35-45 minutes...you always have to check these things yourself...I tend to use the old "stick the skewer in the middle of the pan" trick but many people favour  the "top springs back when gently pressed with your fingertips" method.


When cooked to perfection I let it sit for about 10 minutes.

Then I placed the cake on a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes, top side up.


It would have been delicious with some frosting of some kind but I just iced it with a basic icing made with powdered sugar and water and covered it with more strawberries and served it with vanilla bean ice-cream. The cake was still a little warm so the icing didn't stick, but I really suggest serving it warm.

 We shared this cake between 6 adults and 4 children and look at what was left at the end of the night....

I don't want to boast but it really was yummy! 

It was so nice to see you today-thanks for spending 5 minutes with me! Thanks also to Sarah, Michael Lee, Cindy, Jessa Irene,  Jen, Holly, The Girl Creative, Beverly and the Everyday Sisters for hosting these great linky parties each week. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Best wishes always, 

Strawberries are the angels of the earth, innocent and sweet with green leafy wings reaching heavenward. Terri Guillemets