Almond Cake with Strawberries

The third week of our CSA brought us radishes, russian kale, lettuce, beet greens, turnips, and more strawberries! I was expecting to get more strawberries so I already knew I wanted to do a dessert. I first thought it would be nice to make a classic strawberry shortcake, but once I started looking at recipes I wanted to try something different. On Epicurious I found a Toasted-Almond Cake with Strawberries recipe that looked delicious. Joe doesn't really like sweets but he's a fan of almond desserts so I thought it would be perfect. The recipe calls for rose water for soaking the strawberries. Joe had just made a Rose Water Wit beer that I thought would pair perfectly with the dessert. 
For cake:

• 3/4 cup whole almonds with skins (1/4 pound), toasted and cooled
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature 30 minutes
• 1 1/4 cups superfine granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1/3 cup whole milk
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds (2 ounces)

For strawberries and cream:

• 2 cups water
• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
• 6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 lb strawberries, trimmed and quartered lengthwise
• 1/2 teaspoon rose water or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, or to taste
• 1 1/2 cups chilled heavy cream

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour cake pan, knocking out excess flour. (To make it easier to remove the cake from the pan I would line the pan with parchment paper.) With blender motor at high speed, add half of toasted almonds through top hole and finely grind (be careful not to grind to a paste). Transfer to a bowl and grind remaining almonds in same manner, transferring to bowl. Add flour, baking powder, and salt to ground almonds and whisk until combined well.

Beat eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until foamy, about 15 seconds, then add superfine sugar a little at a time, beating. Continue beating until mixture is thick, pale, and forms a ribbon when beater is lifted, 7 to 8 minutes in a stand mixer or 10 to 14 minutes with a handheld. (This seems like a really long time but it's necessary to get the cake light and airy). Add butter in a slow stream, beating, then add milk and almond extract and beat until just combined. Reduce speed to low, then add flour mixture, mixing until just combined.

Spread batter in pan, smoothing top, then sprinkle evenly with sliced almonds. Bake until top is golden, cake begins to pull away from side of pan, and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack 30 minutes, then run a knife around edge to loosen and invert onto rack. Turn cake right side up on rack and cool completely, about 30 minutes more.

For strawberries in syrup, bring water, sugar, and lemon juice to a boil in a 2- to 3-quart saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Then boil, uncovered, until reduced to about 2 cups, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer syrup to a bowl and cool completely. Stir in strawberries and rose water (I used vanilla instead) and macerate (which means soak) at room temperature 30 minutes.

Beat cream in a large bowl with cleaned beaters until it holds soft peaks. I added about a tablespoon of superfine sugar and a splash of vanilla to make the cream sweeter. 

The dessert definitely had a lot of steps to follow. I was happy with the end result but would make some changes for next time. The cake burned a little around the edge and was hard to get out of the pan. Lining the pan with parchment paper would help. The strawberry syrup was delicious and since I had some left over I used it on my waffles the next day. I would make this dessert again, especially for a bigger group of people since it does get a little dry after being in the fridge for a day or two. This reminded me how different baking is than cooking, since baking measurements need to be exact. I look forward to more baking this summer. Cheers!