Hi,

Few days ago we were invited to a dinner at our friends… As it was one of those “collectively prepared” meals when everyone brings a plate to share, we were requested to bring the dessert. Making a long story short, my wife pulled few recipes out of her infinite stash of books, cut out magazine pages, notes and God knows what else, and there was this one, right on the top of that pile… As I saw it, I knew it’s going to be the one, and boy, it turned out to be a success!

So, here we go:

• 420 g (3 cups) all purpose white flour
• 13 g baking powder
• 1/2 tsp drinking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 4 eggs
• 270 g (1 1/3 cups) sugar + 2 tbsp for dusting
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• zest of 1 lemon
• juice of 1 lemon
• 240 ml (1 cup) milk
• 18 large strawberries, cleaned and cut into 1/4″ (around 5-6 mm) slices

The process:

1. Grease the sides of a 26 cm (12″) springform cake pan and line the base with the baking parchment. Preheat the oven to 180C (355F).
2. Place the flour, baking powder, soda and salt in a bowl and mix together. In the stand mixer bowl whisk the eggs with the sugar until bright and fluffy, using the paddle attachment. Pour in the oil, lemon juice, milk and add the lemon zest. Then – add the flour with the soda, salt and baking powder, and continue beating slowly until all mixed.
3. Pour the cake dough into the form, lay the strawberries slices on top gently (not to disturb the dough too much) and bake for 25 minutes.
4. Remove the cake from the oven, sprinkle with 2 tbsp of sugar and return to the oven for another 25 minutes. Cake is ready when a wooden toothpick stuck in the middle comes out dry.

To make the cake taste more caramel-like, I used a burner and burned the sugar a bit once the cake was finally out of the oven.

That’s it! Enjoy! 🙂