"I hope this will be your summer cake."

Tonight, I made my favorite Coriander-Crusted Scallop and Tangerine salad for my friend Vivek. Because I am still in celebration mode -- of summer, of the end of a good school year, of the sixty fabulous young women who graduated yesterday -- I decided to bake a cake! This recipe came from the Smitten Kitchen, where blogger and cook Deb Perelman writes, "I hope this will be your summer cake." Indeed, it has become just that : ) So delicious, so easy.

Note: The recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of butter, but I put in 8 (a full stick of butter!) and must say that the result was a perfectly moist cake with a perfectly carmelized sugary top. Of course, I did this because I wasn't paying attention, and am sure that the cake is equally good with 6!

Ingredients:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar (cane sugar)
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 quart of the best, freshest, most local strawberries you can find! : )

I basically followed Deb's recipe here and started by sifting the dry ingredients -- the flour, the baking powder and the salt. In a mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to create a crumbly mix of the butter and sugar; it should feel and look light and airy, like lots of small balls of butter. Then, add the other wet ingredients -- the egg, the milk, and the vanilla. I did this mixing with the mixer on a low setting, and the mixture was lumpy; the butter doesn't form a cream. But not to worry! Once you fold in the dry ingredients, the batter almost immediately becomes smooth and, even silky-looking. Pour the batter into a buttered baking dish (my 9" pyrex pie dish worked perfectly). Then, take your strawberries, washed and cut into pieces, and place the berries on the cake batter so that their insides face down. Top the cake with teaspoon or so of white sugar, and bake for about 50 minutes at 350 degrees.