Strawberry and apple cake (with coconut sugar)

After a few disappointing forays into berries and stone fruit over winter, I am delighted to be enjoying fresh, sweet strawberries and apricots this week. They are both delicious plain but with rather a lot of strawberries at my disposal (I was a little excited at the point of purchase) I decided to turn some into a cake.

I also had a few past-their-best apples hanging around, so one of them went into the mix too. The result was this simple but effective strawberry and apple cake, which I chose to sweeten lightly with coconut sugar. It is great plain for afternoon tea and we have also been enjoying it for dessert with soy custard (me) and soy ice cream (Mr Bite).

I don't bake with strawberries very often as I enjoy them so much fresh. I was pleased to discover that they are equally enjoyable in baking, as they hold their flavour and even their shape. I always like apple in cakes but the strawberries were very much the star here, and their natural sweetness stood out nicely against the mellow tones of coconut sugar.

If you don't have fresh strawberries available, you could substitute thawed frozen raspberries, cherries or blueberries instead. The cake will obviously be different but I suspect just as enjoyable in its own way.

A note on measurements before moving into the recipe: I have tried to adopt the British custom of listing weights as well as cup measurements, but the batteries in my kitchen scales died as I was starting to make this, and so I have cup measures only for this recipe! I use metric cups (one cup = 250ml) but if you have American cup measures (one cup = 240ml) you are unlikely to notice much difference in the end result. My tablespoon and teaspoon measures are the international standards of 15ml and 5ml respectively. 

Strawberry and apple cake

Perfect for summer or when you need a dose of summer, this simple cake is naturally sweetened and is delicious plain or with custard or ice cream

Vegan

Makes 1 square cake to serve 12

Author: Adapted from the simple summer strawberry cake on Once Upon A Chef

Print recipe

Ingredients

6 tablespoons non-dairy spread

3/4 metric cup coconut sugar

Egg replacer to the equivalent of 1 egg OR 1 tbsp chia seeds soaked in 1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 metric cup almond milk (or other milk; mine was unsweetened)

1-1/2 metric cups plain flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Pinch salt

1 medium apple, peeled and chopped

1 metric cup de-hulled strawberries, chopped in half

Method

Preheat your oven to 175'C (350'F) and line a square cake pan with baking paper.

In a medium bowl, beat the non-dairy spread and coconut sugar on medium power until fluffy. Add the egg substitute and vanilla and beat to incorporate.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add approximately one-third of the flour to the creamed sugar and beat to incorporate; subsequently, add approximately one-third of the milk to the creamed sugar and beat to incorporate. Continue gradually adding the flour and milk in turn until incorporated. The batter will be quite thick.

Stir through the apple and half of the strawberries.

Transfer the batter to your prepared dish and top with the remaining strawberries.

 

Bake for 40 minutes, monitoring carefully from about 35 minutes, until golden and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Serve plain or with (non-dairy) custard or ice cream.

Have you been baking anything this week?

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