American Dessert
STRAWBERRY BUNDT CAKE
INGREDIENTS – CAKE
1 pound fresh strawberries (1 ounce more later)
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoons baking soda
3¼ cups flour
¾ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup butter, softened (2½ tablespoons more later)
3 eggs
1½ cups sugar
½ tablespoon vanilla extract (½ teaspoon more later)
⅔ cup vegetable oil
1 cup whole milk (2½ tablespoons more later)
2 drops red food coloring gel
no-stick baking spray
INGREDIENTS – GLAZE
1½ ounces fresh strawberries
2½ tablespoons butter, softened
1¾ cups confectioners’ sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2½ tablespoons whole milk
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric blender
electric beater
10″ bundt pan
Serves 12. Takes 3 hours.
PREPARATION – CAKE
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add 1 pound strawberries to electric blender. Puree strawberries. Add baking powder, baking soda, flour, and salt to small mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add ⅔ cup butter, eggs, sugar, ½ tablespoon vanilla extract, vegetable oil, and 1 cup whole milk to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add pureed strawberries and red food coloring gel. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended.
Gradually add in the dry mix from the small bowl into the liquid mix of the large bowl. Mix with electric beater set on low until just combined into batter.
Generously spray bundt pan with no-stick baking spray Pour batter into bundt pan. Level batter with spatula. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Use butter knife to loosen cake from the bundt pan Let cake cool for 15 minutes. Invert cake onto plate. Let cool completely before icing.
PREPARATION – GLAZE
Add 1½ ounces fresh strawberries to blender. Puree strawberries..Add pureed strawberries, 2½ tablespoons butter, confectioners’ sugar, and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract to medium mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on low until well blended. .
Gradually add 2½ tablespoons whole milk or until glaze thickens and is just pourable. Pour glaze evenly over the cooled cake. Allow glaze to drip down the size. Let set for 5 minutes before serving.
TIDBITS
1) Strawberries were known as wartsberries in France in from 1178 to 1347.
2) All Medieval peasants suffered greatly from warts.
3) Their wart-free neighbors shunned them. “Ew,” said the nearby farmers.
4) Downcast, dispirited, and depressed, the wart-ridden peasants joined the King’s army in hopes of campaigning abroad.
5) What luck!. The Hundred Years War erupted, started even, in France in 1347.. Off went the English to France. Archer Jack Strawberry wasn’t even on French soil for six minutes when he stumbled, falling face first into a wartberry patch.
6) When he arose and drew himself up to 90 percent of his full height, his archer companions gasped. His warts has completely disappeared. “By St. George’s darned socks, it’s a miracle,” said Elric Sod. And with Elric’s impimatur, the entire English army rolled and rolled into the wartsberry patch. Grateful archers, men at arms, and knight renamed the wartberry to, strawberry in his honor.
7) I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it happen, but when an army miraculously loses all its warts, it becomes world beaters. “God is clearly on our side,” said Sod. “Who can stand against us.”
8) And indeed, no French army could stand up to the wartless English.
9) Then everything changed. In 1428, the Archangel Michael appeared to Joan, a peasant botanist living in the town of Do Re Me. “Joan, take your botanical knowledge to King Charles VIII; as he surely has none.”
10) So Brainy Joan made her way to the royal court. “Your majesty,” said she. “To defeat the cursed English, you must destroy every strawberry patch in France. Without strawberries, warts will once more sprout like weeds upon the soldiers. Their morale will plummet and your army will vanquish them time after time. Impressed by Joan’s piety and botanical acumen., Charles VIII did what she said. The French would evict the English for good. Brainy Joan would become Saint Joan. Yay.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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