Strawberry crunch cake

Guest blogger Darrell Parry

Today, is Angel’s birthday. So… with the help of our 5 (almost 6)-year-old, I made a birthday cake. Which comes to us from About.com. http://southernfood.about.com/od/berrycakes/r/bl30607q.htm

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Strawberry Crunch Cake

Strawberry cake is made from scratch, with frozen strawberries, sour cream, a pecan topping layer, and strawberry sauce

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 (10 ounces each) packages frozen strawberries in syrup
• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

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Pecan Layer and Topping:

• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

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Sauce:

• Reserved strawberry syrup
• 4 teaspoons cornstarch
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

Preparation:

Drain thawed strawberries, reserving syrup; set aside.

In a mixing bowl cream butter and 1 1/4 cups sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs; beat well. Blend in sour cream. In another bowl stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture, blending well.

Spread half of the batter in a greased and floured 13x8x2-inch baking pan. Spoon drained strawberries over the batter.

Combine pecan layer ingredients in a small bowl; sprinkle half of the nut mixture over the layer of batter and strawberries. Spread remaining batter over all, then sprinkle with remaining nut mixture.

Bake at 350° for 30 to 35 minutes.

In a small saucepan, combine reserved strawberry syrup with 4 teaspoons cornstarch. Heat, stirring, until thickened and bubbly. Add 2 teaspoons lemon juice. Cool and serve over warm or cooled strawberry crunch cake. Serve with whipped cream or whipped topping, if desired.

Okay...

Putting our skills to the test, we thawed, measured and mixed. Everything was perfectly smooth. My helper thought the batter tasted great. I put the fist layer in the pan. It seemed thick, but not impossibly so. However, this led me to spread a little more batter than the ½ suggested be the recipe. Uh-Oh. After mixing the nutty part and adding the drained strawberries there wasn’t enough batter left to cover the top. Oh crap! So now what?

Quick, more batter! Channeling the spirit of my Pennsylvania Dutch Grandmother who grew up on a farm baking 10 pies a day since she was 6-years-old, I grabbed handful of thi9s and spoonfuls of that and haphazardly threw them into the mixture, following no recipe but my gut. When it was done the consistency was about right and the flavor was a pretty good match, so we threw it in the oven and headed upstairs to put the little one to bed.

After the 35 min. to cook the kid was settled in and I checked the cake. RAW! I put it in for 5 more minutes…. still raw. Okay 10 MORE MINUTES! Panic time. Was my mixture not cooking because I messed with the balance of ingredients?

Those of you who actually have baking experience can probably see this coming. Angel comes home. I explain the problem and she says, “Did you double the recipe or something? That looks like a lot of cake. Maybe that’s why it’s taking longer.” My extra batter! Should have figured that one out myself, really.

In the end the cake baked through although It took a looong time.) This morning we cut up pull n’ peel Twizzlers and spelled “Happy Birthday Angel” (the little one’s idea) and added gummy bears and candles. In the end it was a great success!