June 8, 2011 American Recipes

Strawberry Buckle

Strawberry Buckle is a delicious berry dessert for spring and summer! A soft and buttery cake that is just packed with seasonal berries, and topped with an easy to make cinnamon crumble.

You can make this simple to make cake for Mother’s Day, a special brunch, or all summer long when the berries are the sweetest!

Summer is here. I know, it’s not officially here. But school is out. We are enjoying lazier days. Calm days without homework and a list of activities.

Slower days full of intense heat and promises of a cold glass of iced tea on the back porch. Happy days watching my kids playing sometimes in synch, and sometimes not so in synch. Catching up with good books I’ve been meaning to finish and new ones I can’t wait to begin.

What’s with that strawberry? I’m not sure. I’ve never seen a Siamese strawberry before. My daughter was as fascinated as I was and took that photo.

I started blogging about baking and food last summer. It was something I had wanted to do for quite a few years. It was pretty simple to do, right? You bake or cook something. You photograph it and post it in your cute little blog. Then what?

Then what happened was I found Twitter. I said my first, “Hello!” to the world of Twitter and a few people responded. Those few people were also food lovers. Talented photographers, thoughtful writers, and travelers. Encouraged and inspired, I was smitten by my new friends.

We were scattered around the world, but connected almost every day to chat a little about our lives and our kitchens. We talked about what we were making and writing. We drooled over each other’s travel photos and meals. We shared a common interest and bond: A love of good food. The list of friends has grown and I’m inspired even more by all the talent I’ve encountered.

One of the first recipes I posted was Deb’s Blueberry Buckle. I have to giggle when I look at my photography and writing last summer.I'm tempted to click delete on my Blueberry Buckle post. But I can't! I have to leave it to remind me of where I started.

I feel I've grown a little since then and hope to keep learning even more as time goes on.My kids fell hard for this little cake and I’ve baked it too many times to remember since last summer. I’ve made it with every type of berry. My favorite way to make it is with strawberries.

As soon as the calendar page turns to June, all I want to bake is Buckles, Betties, Pan Dowdies, and Pies. I can’t get enough of summer’s berries and neither can my family. This buckle recipe is simple to make and you can change in whatever berry you’d like and it will still be just perfect!

Strawberry Buckle
slightly adapted from Smith Bites Blueberry Buckle

For the cake:

1/4 cup of butter softened
3/4 cup of sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup of milk (*this time I used buttermilk instead and it was AMAZING)
zest of lemon
2 cups of flour
2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
3/4 teaspoon of salt
2 cups of strawberries (or blueberries, blackberries, a combo of them all even is great!)

Crumble Topping

1/3 cup of butter, softened
1/2 cup of sugar
1/3 cup of flour
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 F. Butter and flour 9 inch square or round pan.

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the milk and egg; mix well

Add the flour, lemon zest, baking powder, salt; mix well.

Fold the berries in by hand.

Mix topping ingredients until crumbly. (This is Gabriella's favorite part. She's the official crumble mixer).

Spread cake batter in cake pan, sprinkle topping over batter and bake for 45-50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Some other cake recipes:

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