Guys! The sun is shining—in earnest—and as I write this, I’m looking out over the water at the white strip of sand that forms the edge of Shelter Island. The bay is placid today, the surface of the water blue and sparkling and ruffled only by an occasional breeze. This morning I took a walk wearing shorts, and though the sight of my extremely pale skin is always mildly alarming come May, the freeing sensation of not wearing another G-D pair of sweatpants is really quite splendid.
(As I struggle to describe the experience of putting on said shorts this morning, I’m picturing being little and exploring in the woods, and flipping over a damp log to rouse the startled grubs and creatures beneath: pale white and blinking alarmingly in the bright sunlight. That, my friends, is me. In May. The thought of my tanned and freckled summer skin is a distant and pleasant memory, and I’ll welcome that slow shift into bronzed, blonde glory.)
Yesterday evening was warm too—not as warm as today, but enough that I could wear shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt to take a bike ride as the day drew to a close. The air held that particular fresh coolness that comes only after a spate of spring rain. I pedaled past farm stands (closed) and my favorite winery (closed) and the lavender fields (closed).
Something about the just-after-rain days makes the earth smell more vivid, I think, and as I biked I kept catching bits of scents here and there. At one point, I could smell hot asphalt (reminding me of steamy summer days spent on a tennis court) and around another turn, cut grass. Scent is such a powerful trigger, and with one breath, I was transported back to the big pasture at the farm where I grew up. Standing, age 15, in faded jeans and a baseball hat, helping my parents pick up and stack hay bales on the tractor trailer to bring to the barn for storage. I could almost feel the stiff, prickly straw scratching my wrists and the burning ache in my arm muscles after an hour of heaving hay bales into the air.
A sob—unbidden and unexpected—rose in my throat, making my breath thick and choked as I biked faster. These memories of specific, tiny, ordinary moments make me feel intensely homesick for regular life, before all of this.
I find myself missing things that still exist—not because I couldn’t replicate them, but because they signal moments in time when the world around me still felt securely pinned in place, and it doesn’t very much these days.
Most of my thoughts are drifting towards summer; the first warm days are causing my synapses to fire with a flood of warm weather longings. The smell of campfire smoke. The brisk cold of ocean water against your ankles. The taste of fresh basil. Corn on the cob dripping with butter, its rows of pearly white kernels taut and fat. The bitter, bubbly first sip of a very cold Aperol spritz. The not-unpleasant sting when hot shower water first hits your tight, sunburned skin.
Strawberries, warm from the sun, in a green cardboard basket at the farmers market. And with those strawberries: strawberry cake, moist and golden. This particular cake has an especially tender crumb, thanks to the addition of mascarpone (more on that in a moment), and wherever the batter cradles the berries it forms pockets of soft, jammy fruit. The cake gets ever-so-slightly custardy where it touches the berries, which is a texture that only improves over the next day or two when you eat a slice cold from the fridge.
About the mascarpone: I’ve made this cake with mascarpone, creme fraiche, and Greek yogurt. All work beautifully, and the main difference will be in the sturdiness and richness of the cake. Use what you have—I suspect that sour cream, plain yogurt, quark, and other soft cheeses or yogurt-like ingredients like fromage blanc would be totally fine, if not wonderful. I’m sure you could even use buttermilk, though the batter will be considerably thinner.
Do not skip the raw sugar step! I am of the mind—lately more than ever—that very few cakes (loaf cakes included) wouldn’t benefit from a sprinkling of sugar (raw or otherwise) on top before baking. It forms a crackly crust which is just DEE-LIGHT-FUL.
Okay, onto the recipe:
Simple Strawberry Cake
Makes one 8” or 9” round cake
1 cup (120g) all-purpose flour
2/3 cup (120g) granulated sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
8 ounces mascarpone cheese
2 eggs
6 tablespoons (85g) melted unsalted butter, cooled slightly
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pint fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced in half or quarters
1 ½ tablespoons raw sugar
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8” or 9” round cake pan with parchment paper and grease the paper and sides of the pan well.
Whisk together the flour, granulated sugar, salt, and baking powder and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the mascarpone with eggs until light and fluffy. Add the melted butter and vanilla and mix well.
Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in the berries very gently, or you can also just top the cake with the berries once the batter is in the pan, if you prefer, or do a mix of both!
Scrape the batter into your prepared pan. Sprinkle the raw sugar over the top of the cake.
Bake for about 45-50 minutes, starting to check at 40 minutes. The cake is ready when it’s golden brown, smells like strawberry jam, and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it.
Remove from the oven and let cool before slicing and serving. Keeps well for a few days in the fridge!