Fresh Strawberry Cake with Orange Glaze

It's Easter Sunday, and Kristin and I are in charge of bringing lots of baked goods over to her parents' place to feed the clan.  I made my Cloverleaf Rolls, Kristin made some really tasty lemon cookies, and we joined forces to make this cake.  It's a really delicious, moist vanilla cake with lots of fresh strawberries baked right in, and covered in a light, tangy orange glaze.  I think it will be a hit.

I'd be lying if I said this cake didn't involve some trials and tribulations.  Our first attempt was perfectly done on top after its bake, but not quite there underneath, and came out of the bundt pan in pieces.  It was tempting to give up after baking all day, but we tried some of the fallen-apart first attempt and - oh man, it was good.  We knew we had to do it again and get it right.  A longer bake at lower temperature did the trick - the second attempt came out beautiful, and that sad first cake made a great breakfast this morning.

Here's what you'll need!  For the cake: flour, sugar, vanilla-flavored greek yogurt, a pound of fresh strawberries, butter, eggs, baking soda, orange zest and juice, and salt.  Just two ingredients in the glaze: powdered sugar and a little more orange juice.

First, clean and finely chop the fresh strawberries.  You want the pieces to be small enough to distribute thoroughly throughout the batter and really flavor the whole cake.

Next, combine the dry ingredients - all but 1/4 cup of the flour, baking soda, and salt - in a mixing bowl.

I like getting some color in the background of the "bowl of white powder" shot.  I also liked stealing strawberry bites periodically as we baked - these were tasty!

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar, then beat in the three eggs, a tablespoon of orange juice, and the orange zest.

Alternate beating in dry ingredients and yogurt about 1/3 of each at a time.  Take care not to overmix, but do make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl - the flour mixture really likes to hide out around the edges.

Mix the last 1/4 cup with the fresh strawberries - this helps them to stay in place in the batter and keeps strawberry juice from inconsistently dying your cake pink.

Gently mix the floured strawberries into the batter.  Resist the urge to eat it with a spoon (though it is really tasty to lick from a mixing spoon).

Add the batter to a well-greased and floured bundt pan.  Be really, really certain not to skip the greasing/flouring - you don't want your cake to stick and fall apart like our first attempt.  It'll still be delicious, but it's truly sad to flip the cake and watch it go all to pieces.

Bake 75 minutes at 300 degrees until top of cake is golden brown and the edges have begun to pull away from the pan.  Test with a toothpick in a few spots and make sure that it comes out absolutely, 100% clean - if not, keep baking!

Let the cake cool a half-hour or so in the bundt before flipping and removing from the pan.

Whisk together 1 cup powdered confectioner's sugar with two tablespoons of fresh orange juice, and drizzle this glaze over the cake once it's completely cooled.  This adds a nice complex tartness to the sweetness of the cake itself.

This cake is perfectly tasty warm, cold, or room-temperature.  I just had some for breakfast, and am already looking forward to a slice for dessert after Easter dinner, too!

Recipe: Fresh Strawberry Cake with Orange Glaze
Prep Time: 20 Minutes | Cook Time: 75 Minutes (plus cooling) | Difficulty: Medium | Servings: 12 Slices

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups Flour (divided)
• 2 cups White Sugar
• 1 cup Butter
• 3 Eggs
• 8 oz Vanilla Greek Yogurt
• 3 tbsp Orange Juice (divided)
• Zest of 1 Orange
• 1 cup Powdered Sugar
• 1 lb. Fresh Strawberries
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine 2 1/4 cups flour, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream together sugar and softened butter with an electric mixer.  Beat in eggs, orange zest, and 1 tbsp orange juice.
4. Alternate beating in dry ingredients and yogurt.  Scrape sides of bowl carefully to ensure mixing.
5. Hull and finely chop fresh strawberries, then mix will remaining 1/4 cup flour.  Stir into batter.
6. Thoroughly grease and flour a bundt pan and pour in the batter.
7. Bake 75 minutes at 300 degrees until edges pull away from the pan and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out 100% clean.
8. Cool 30 minutes in the pan, then turn out and remove from pan to finish cooling.
9. Whisk together powdered sugar and 2 tbsp Orange Juice into a glaze and drizzle over top of cake once completely cool.

Christmas Cookies: Spritzers

Baked goods are an essential part of the holidays.  Kristin's family makes these little Spritzer cookies most every year, and she has some fun stories about all the ways that these seemingly-simple cookies can go all wrong.  We experienced one - our first attempt we made something more like Christmas Wafers than cookies.  It was no good.  This batch turned out great.  We'll see if they last more than a day or two.

It's not Christmas without Christmas Cookies - nor can it be Christmas cookie season without swearing at the cookies that refuse to turn out.  Thankfully, these are quick and easy to whip up, so if something goes terribly wrong, just try, try again.

Not too many ingredients here.  You'll need flour, sugar, shortening, vanilla, almond extract, baking powder, and a single egg.  Sprinkles and decorating sugar can jazz things up a bit, but aren't strictly necessary.  But you don't really want boring, unsprinkled cookies, do you?

You'll also need one of these bad boys - a Spritzer machine.  We found ours for about $10 at Target and it works great.

First, you'll need the always-exciting bowl of white powders.  Combine the flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl and set aside for now.

The next several steps are much easier with a mixer of some sort.  A hand mixer does the job, and of course a stand mixer could do it, too.  First, combine your 1 1/2 cups of shortening with 3 tbsp of water and beat until its combined and fluffy - about 30 seconds should do it.

Now add all that other wet stuff: the sugar, vanilla and almond extracts, and the egg.  Beat again until everything is combined and the texture resembles frosting.

Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix well until combined.  This can take some time.  The dough will be fairly dense.

Add some dough to your spritzer machine, and start pressing it into shapes onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Ungreased is important, otherwise your shapes will refuse to stay shapely, or even to stay on the pan at all.

Some will be prettier than others.  Some will refuse to come out of the machine entirely, or will be hideously deformed.  Just toss these ugly cookies back in with the rest of the dough and press replacements until you're satisfied.

Cover liberally with whatever sorts of decorations you like.  Be exuberant - make sure to spill more of those decorations onto the pan than you get onto the cookies.  It's important.

Now bake them!  They'll bake up very quickly - just about 6 minutes at 400 degrees.  They'll look almost unchanged on top, but if you bake 'til they're brown then the poor cookies will be dead, dead, dead.  Just the bottoms should be ever-so-slightly brown.

Make plenty of different shapes!

No really, make plenty.  Cool on a wire rack - or on top of other cooling cookies.

Consider using some food coloring - Kristin was pretty proud of her little green trees.  There's really no wrong way to decorate.  Have fun!

Once you're done, make sure to try one of each shape and pick a favorite.  An hour later, you'll doubt your choice, and have to test all over again.  You should probably also test to see which tastes best dunked in coffee or cocoa.  You know, for science.  It's important.

Bake plenty, eat plenty, and even share if you're feeling particularly kindly.  If you run out, just bake some more.  They're worth it.

Recipe: Spritzer Cookies
Prep Time: 10 Minutes | Cook Time: 20 Minutes | Difficulty: Easy | Servings: 60 Cookies

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups Flour
• 1 1/2 cups Shortening (pref. butter flavor)
• 3 tbsp Water
• 1 cup White Sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 tsp Almond Extract
• Optional - Decorating sugars and sprinkles

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine flour and baking powder.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat shortening 30 seconds until fluffy.  Add sugar, egg, vanilla, and almond extract and beat again 60-90 seconds until combined and fluffy.
4. Gradually add dry ingredients, beating until well-blended.
5. Add dough to spritzer machine and press into shapes onto ungreased cookie sheets.
6. Optional - Add decorating sugars and/or sprinkles before baking.
7. Bake cookies 6-7 minutes at 400 degrees.  Cookie bottoms should be barely brown.
8. Cool on wire racks.