Shopper Kitchen: Summer Strawberries and an Old-Fashioned Pound Cake

By ANGELA McRAE, Special to The Coweta Shopper

If you’ve been baking for longer than five minutes, you can probably taste the difference between a cake baked from a mix and a cake baked from scratch.

I have made both varieties this month.

First, I tried a Pioneer Woman recipe for a Strawberry Poke Cake, and that’s what I took to my dad’s for Father’s Day this year. The cake was well received by my family, and I enjoyed it, too, but whenever I taste a soft, spongy cake that’s clearly from a mix, I always think to myself, “Cheater.” But when I taste a cake with a bit more texture and some flavorful icing, that’s when I know that, “Oh yes, this one’s homemade!”

So when I was looking through one of my vintage cookbooks and not one but two newspaper-clipped recipes for Strawberry Pound Cake fell out, I considered it a sign. The typeface was different on each recipe, but while it apparently was published in two different newspapers, it was the exact same recipe.

Now, I often think a pound cake deserves to be presented in its simplicity and not gussied up too much, but then I started studying the icing recipe that was included in the list of ingredients. It was so short, so simple, that I decided to give it a try. Plus, it would add more pink coloring to the cake, which is always a win in my book.

Turns out this delicious pink concoction was, both literally and figuratively, the icing on the cake! Strawberries are still in season, and many folks are going to pick-your-own places, so this seemed like the perfect time of year to try a new strawberry dessert.

And unless you just like chopping strawberries, I recommend giving them a quick whirl in your food processor. Given a choice of tasks, I prefer punching a button over chopping any day, and I’ll bet some of you do too. Enjoy!

Strawberry Pound Cake

8 eggs, separated
2-3/4 cups sugar, divided use
1 pound butter
3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped fine
1 teaspoon red food coloring

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat the egg whites until foamy, add 6 tablespoons of the sugar, then beat until soft peaks form. Store in refrigerator while mixing cake. Cream butter, add remaining sugar, and mix well. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the flour and strawberries alternately, then add the food coloring. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Pour into greased and floured 10-inch tube pan and bake for 80-90 minutes or until done. Let cool for 10 minutes in pan, then remove cake and allow to cool completely on wire rack. When cooled, frost with icing.

Strawberry Icing

1 stick melted butter
1 (16-ounce) box confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, chopped fine

Combine all ingredients and mix with electric or rotary mixer, then frost top and sides of cake.