Simple Strawberry Cake

Preheat oven the to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch pie plate.Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together into a medium bowl.

Add the egg, milk and vanilla to a small bowl and lightly beat them together using a fork. Set this aside.

Put the softened butter and 1 cup of sugar into a bowl using a hand-mixer, or a small stand mixer, mix them together on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. A very large stand mixer’s bowl is too large to do an effective job with this small amount. That is why I chose a hand mixer.Once the mixture is light and fluffy, reduce the speed to medium-low; mix in the egg, milk, and vanilla mixture.The rest of the recipe is best finished with hand mixing. Because it is easy to overwork the batter. Too much mixing and the flour can start to develop too strong a gluten structure, making you cake “bready”. So you should gradually mix the flour mixture into the butter, milk and egg mixture using a wooden spoon.The batter will be quite thick. But that is fine.Line the bottom of the pie tin with ½ of the cut strawberries. Then transfer batter to the pie plate and spread it over the strawberries that line the bottom.Arrange the rest of the strawberries on top of batter, cut sides down and as close together as possible. Push them into the batter a little bit.

Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over the top of the cake.

Bake cake the for 10 minutes. Then reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees.

Bake until cake is golden brown and firm to the touch, about 50-55 minutes. Check for doneness by with the tip of a knife. It should come out clean.

Let cool in pie plate on a wire rack.

Cut into wedges.

Serve with ice cream. Cake can be stored at room temperature, loosely covered, up to 2 days