While traveling and international caffeination is all well and good, it’s ABOUT TIME I put a recipe up on this thang, don’t you think? So after months of eating other people’s food, here’s a little something I’ve been tweaking for y’all – a strawberry cardamom cake baked in a tart pan.
Admittedly, I’m not a huge cake fan. I think it stems from the fact that most cakes out there are either too dry or too sweet (and I’m pretty sure I’ve been scarred for life by any abysmal birthday cake I was forced to eat from Safeway during childhood). I spend most of my dessert eating devouring either breakfast pastries or tarts, which to me can do no wrong. But when I saw this recipe by Maria of Pink Patisserie, I felt that it was calling out to me because it was baked not in a cake pan but in a tart pan!
SO – if a cake is baked in a tart pan, is it still a cake? Answer: Yes, but it’s a way, way up, better cake. With more surface area, the cake bakes out in thinner slices that are evenly cooked and moist. Instead of overloading the batter with sugar, I used a combination of flours as well as coconut cream – aka nectar of the gods – to add in layers of flavor that make this cake perfect for a summer dessert, breakfast ensemble, or midnight snack.
And anyways, a hefty dose of cardamom never really hurt anybody.
- 85g (6 Tbsp) butter, room temperature
- 200g (1 cup) sugar
- 150g (1/2 cup) coconut cream (you can use coconut milk too, as long as it’s full-fat)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg
- 3/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 150g (1 1/4 cup) all-purpose flour
- 25g (1/4 cup) almond meal
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 lb strawberries, sliced
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut out a circle of parchment paper that fits at bottom of a 10″ tart pan. Grease the pan, lay in the parchment circle, then grease the pan again, making sure the sides are well oiled.
- In a small bowl, whisk together flour, almond meal, baking powder, salt, and cardamom. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar for 3-4 minutes on high. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat in egg.
- With mixer on medium-low, add coconut cream and vanilla.
- Turn mixer to low and add in dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Pour batter into prepared tart pan, using an offset spatula to evenly spread it. It will be thick.
- Arrange sliced strawberries over batter on top, gently pressing them in.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes until the top is a light golden color and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes before slicing.
i have been enjoying your posts lately but a cake recipe never hurts 🙂 i love the meticulously arranged strawberries!!!
This is just wonderful!! And I agree, cardamom never hurt anyone. Love the strawberries dotting the top like that 🙂
This looks amaaaaaazing!
This looks so good!! Weirdly with me, I really liked the cakes from Safeway when I was a kid. But only from one Safeway which had an AMAZING bakery. Once that one closed, I never ate a cake from Safeway again.
Although I think I would much rather have this !
I feel like supermarket birthday cakes could turn anyone off of cake eating. I’d much rather eat something like this – subtly sweet and richly flavored!
Yum x a million! This looks crazy good and I’m in love with that green mixer!!!!
Can I make this with all almond flour, and no regular wheat flour? And replace the coconut cream with almond milk or with pumpkin? Want to make this for Passover where no flour is allowed, and we can’t have coconut. Also — how do the strawberries not bleed red pools into the cake!?? Looks WONDERFUL! Cannot use the coconut cream at all though…