Strawberry Spoon Cake

food deserts and the Best Dessert my husband has ever had

I know I literally just told y’all to almost always roast your strawberries here but there are exceptions to every rule and I do love breaking a rule.

It’s 8 pm when Anaya, out of nowhere, exclaims, “I FORGOT VANILLA ICE CREAM ON MY WAY HOME! WE NEED IT FOR DESSERT!”

If you know Anaya you might have requested to check his temperature, maybe even his pulse. The man is good for a few bites, perhaps one full serving of any dessert ever. Anything that is categorically sweet is not really his jam but he enjoys little bits here and there. Rarely does he request any type of dessert save for the Sweet Tart ropes we keep in our nightstands usually.

IYKYK

But Anaya ate this strawberry spoon cake every day until it was gone (three nights in a row, specifically) if that tells you anything. Just go ahead and bookmark this is what I’m getting at.

We live in a food desert in one of the most wealthy/expensive re: gentrified districts in Denver. Since this particular neighborhood isn’t as gentrified as the others (yet), it is still a food desert.

If you’re unfamiliar with what food deserts are, simply put, they are areas often considered “urban” (😒) where grocery stores and access to quality/better quality food is limited or just non existent. Frankly- it’s an area that poor folks, and more specifically BIPOC folks, live. Colonizers + capitalism don’t deem them worthy enough of quality affordable food.

We can walk the three blocks to the nearest Save a Lot with limited offerings and geared for lower income/fixed income folks or get in the car and drive ten minutes to the other, bigger chains that offer more variety and higher quality but that’s neither here nor there.

At any rate. The other night after I had made the spoon cake and hadn’t served it yet, I sent him over to Save a Lot to grab some and there we found the best vanilla bean ice cream either of us have had… ever?

We didn’t realize how much we loved it until Anaya’s “WE DON’T HAVE ICE CREAM” declaration a couple nights later and since we were already mostly undressed and had long since been in bed he decided to order some vanilla ice cream from the local (bougie) spot we have always liked.

TLDR the Save a Lot vanilla bean ice cream won by a landslide, no contest. As in, the spoon cake is incredible on its own but I highly recommend you get your hands on your favorite vanilla bean (yes, specifically vanilla bean) because it really does something beautiful with the cake itself.

It is, for lack of better literary description, really fucking good.

If you’ve been here since the inception of food//and you know my deep love of simple, quality, unfussy meals. Haven’t I made him a spoon cake before? I have certainly made them in the past.

It’s humble enough that it can be put together on a dime with minimal ingredients when you’re short on time. It can be made en masse easily, and the fact that it’s both Pantry Staple Friendly and Choose Your Own Adventure means, to me, it’s a culinary hero. Darling, even.

Spoon cakes are a pudding-cake hybrid mashup and are siblings to the spoon bread. Created and revered in the south, a spoon bread- think cornbread but more moist and not crumbly, has been a southern staple since the late 1800’s and even longer before that as something similar was created by indigenous folks of that land, later colonized, and molded by enslaved folks.

It is my favorite dessert elements in one 9 inch baking dish. It’s imperative that you don’t think of this dish as simply a cake because it isn’t. If you think you’re just making a cake and pull this from the oven you will be shocked by the lack of height, the texture, the whole thing. It seems underdone, gooey (I fucking hate this word but it is that), and can be as seasonal as you like.

That’s the beauty about spoon cakes- they’re virtually fuck up proof. Scale the sugar a bit. See what happens if you sub some of the butter for yogurt or whatever. Add a different fruit, maybe a little more or less. I mean, not right now, ha! What I mean is make it as written so you can get a feel for the recipe but make adjustments as you see fit. Try blackberries next time! Don’t use cornmeal if you don’t want to, but you really should.

My point is that I love recipes like this that stay tucked in your mind, riffing as you go, eventually no longer needing to reach for a recipe. It’s also great for gaining some confidence if you’re a non-baker. It can be made vegan quite easily, is even better served with vanilla bean ice cream, and even better the next day.

I don’t mean to boast but yes I do. I want to gush about spoon cakes as a whole, though. I didn’t invent it, this is just my version.

Strawberry Spoon Cake

130 grams all purpose flour

5 grams baking powder

30 grams yellow cornmeal

140 grams (light or dark, this time I had light although I do usually have dark) brown sugar, divided

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cardamom

A couple small pinches of cinnamon. A dash, whatever. Just a tiny bit. It’s going to be okay, you’re not going to fuck it up

1 1/2 sticks or 12 Tbsp or 180 grams(ish) butter, melted

1/2 cup or 120 milliliters of milk, I used oat milk because that’s what I have and I love how creamy it is

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

About a cup or 150 grams of fresh or frozen (thawed) strawberries, hull them if you want to but rarely do I and I did not this time

Zest from one lemon

Juice from half a lemon

Grease a 9 inch cake pan, set aside

Preheat the oven to 350

I don’t even bother cutting my strawberries unless they’re particularly huge. I put them all in a bowl, use my potato masher to crush them, not pulverize them, and then stir in half the brown sugar, a generous pinch of salt, the lemon juice and zest and set it aside.

In another large bowl combine the flour, remaining sugar, cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and cardamom and just a pinch or two of cinnamon for warmth. Stir well to combine.

Add the melted butter, stir until it’s well incorporated.

Add the milk and vanilla. Mix just until everything is combined.

Pour the batter into the baking dish and then drop the berries including all their juices right on top, doing your best to disperse evenly.

Bake for about 40 minutes but check on it around the 30 minute mark to gauge where you’re at. The center should not be jiggly and a toothpick should come out relatively clean minus a few crumbs. All ovens are different. Don’t get hung up on time, not with this recipe or others. Is it jiggly? It’s not done. Is your toothpick relatively clean? Then it is.

Let it cool for 5 minutes and then literally spoon it into bowls, adding vanilla bean ice cream if you please and you do please, I promise.

Biggest love,

AR

Currently Listening To: So many Cancer-esque playlists, so little time. Find me on Spotify @ Ava Truckey (Facebook won’t let me change my mf name)

Currently Reading: I’m still listening to Chee’s How To Write an Autobiographical Novel but I have to admit I have had to bounce around a bit, something that I don’t like doing. I do intend to stay the course though as there have been some really wonderful elements

Currently Cooking: I have chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge for kitchen sink style cookies to take on our trip complete with bits of potato chips, pretzels, and a sprinkling of Maldon. I also hope to make s’mores blondies for the kids especially since we can’t make our own actual s’mores while we’re there