Stawberry Traybake

I’m home for about a week before we fly off to Ireland for a massive family reunion over Easter, which means lots of excuses for baking. It was my brother’s birthday this weekend, and my family’s always in the mind that you should take cake to share at school/work/whatever when it’s someone’s birthday. He’s now twenty-five. TWENTY-FIVE. I told him he was a quarter of a way to a century and he wasn’t very impressed. I know twenty-five isn’t old but he was sixteen last time I noticed so he can’t possibly be that old…even weirder was that it bleeding snowed. I have never ever known it to snow on his birthday. Sort it out weather, or I’m going to get SADS soon.

Back to the point- we found a recipe for English summer cupcakes that we wanted to try, but because there was lots of people to feed cake to we made it into a traybake instead. I reckon it would be really good in the summer with a glass of Pimms.

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter

350g caster sugar

4 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

350g self-raising flour

Pinch of salt

3 tbsps milk

200g strawberries, cut into small pieces

For Icing:

250g unsalted butter

500g cream cheese

2tsps strawberry jam

550g icing sugar

200g strawberries, cut into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter and line a traybake tin.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until creamy.

Beat the eggs and vanilla extract together in a separate bowl, then add a little at a time to the creamy butter, mixing in between.

Add the flour, salt and milk. Gently fold everything together to form a smooth batter.

Chop your strawberries up into small pieces and fold them into the batter.

Pour into your prepared tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and springy on top. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing beat the butter, cream cheese and jam together. Sift the icing sugar in a little at a time. When the cake has completely cooled spread the icing evenly all over the cake, then finish with the chopped strawberries.

Definitely needed with a hot cup of tea in this ridiculous weather.