Thursday, July 24, 2014

Fresh Strawberry Coffee Cake - Moist, Delicious, and "Oh so Strawberry!"

As promised, today I'm sharing a new recipe with you. I am happy to be doing another guest post for Honeyville and sharing my recipe for Fresh Strawberry Coffee Cake with you. If you like strawberries...then you will love this one. It just screams summertime.

I've been working on this recipe over the last couple of weeks to perfect it. It's full of fresh strawberries and absolutely perfect for summertime. This cake is moist, flavorful and "oh so strawberry!" It's packed with strawberries and walnuts. It makes 12 generous servings and each contains approximately 7 net carbs, 3 grams of sugar and 11 grams of protein! Now how does THAT sound for breakfast? If you are one of the many folks that have asked me for breakfast ideas "other than eggs"...this one's for YOU!

That by no means implies that you couldn't eat it as a dessert or snack...or like I am as I type this...for LUNCH! LOL I say this with the utmost honesty and sincerity, Honeyville's blanched almond flour has truly made my grain free lifestyle over these past 2 years so much more enjoyable as well as tasty!

I hope you enjoy this coffee cake as much as I do. The great thing about this cake is that it's wheat free, grain free, gluten free and has no added sugar (thanks to Swerve sweetener). It's a perfect addition to your low carb menu. You can find the recipe here: Fresh Strawberry Coffee Cake. Enjoy!




               

16 comments:

tanita✿davis said...

This looks super-tasty! I rarely can get past the eat-ALL-the-berries! mood to cook with strawberries, but I'd like to try this!

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi Tanita,

Thank you. If you are unsure about trying it, you could always make a "half batch" and bake it in a square baking pan to test out first! :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi GGC - This looks so good and I will be making it soon. What do you think about subbing blueberries for the strawberries when the season is over?

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi there,

Subbing blueberries should work -- it's sort of like a big rectangular "strawberry muffin" to begin with! I may try it out with blueberries and make a half batch first just in case it needs a little tweaking. The strawberries emit a lot of juice -- I need to see how the blueberries compare "juiciness wise". If you try it before I do...let me know! :-)

Karen B said...

Just pulled the Fresh Strawberry Cake out of the oven and had to have a taste. Where is the whip cream when you want it???? This is delicious! So tasty and moist. Thank you for an option besides eggs. I did leave the chocolate off of mine (I want it to mainly be for breakfast) but is adaptable for anytime with all the additional options! I will make it next time without the added walnuts on top, just a preference. I can see blueberries in this too....

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi Karen,

So glad you liked the cake. You are right, you can tweak it a multitude of ways to make it perfect for you! I'm sure it would be good with blueberries as well. I may try that soon! :-)

CyberSis said...

Hi GGC,

Wow, this looks great! I wonder if it would work with thawed frozen strawberries ... you wouldn't have to worry about the soft texture of thawed berries, since they're getting soft in the oven anyway. Perhaps a way to "extend" the season? Also, strawberries are one thing I prefer to get organic if possible and they aren't always available.

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi CyberSis,

I'm sure it would work with thawed frozen strawberries. You might need to add a little more coconut flour to compensate for any extra juice they make when thawed. Maybe an extra tablespoon or so to soak up the extra moisture? Also, when you try it with frozen, maybe make a 1/2 batch in a square pan to see how it works first. Moisture would be the only possible issue I think but could be compensated for. :-)

Sherri said...

Made this today with blueberries. Marvelous! I made muffins and used almond extract instead of strawberry. My daughter says possibly the best muffins I've ever made!

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi Sherri,

Yay! That's awesome. I bought some blueberries over the weekend to use in this too. So glad it turned out so nicely for you and that your daughter thought they were the best you've made! Win/win for Mom! :-)

mcasey said...

We made this last Saturday, and it is well worth the effort! We have enjoyed it for breakfast and dessert. GGC, your recipes always turn out great, and we really appreciate all you do. We have been wheat-free for about the same amount of time as you and love this lifestyle. You are a big part of it. Thank you!

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Thanks so much mcasey! I'm so glad you enjoyed it and thanks so much for the kind words, too! :-)

Cammie said...

How do you think this would work with frozen plums? I've been looking for an almond flour coffee cake or cake with crumbly topping to use with the plums. I like this recipe because it has a lot of fiber in the flour, nuts and seeds, all of which will help to balance the carbs in the plums. I still have a bunch of plums in my freezer while meanwhile this summer's crop is ripening fast on the tree! Help! (I live in N. CA and even with the drought the plum trees really produce.) I thawed a few plums to check on the taste and texture, and there is a lot of plum liquid ... guess I could cook them down a bit first. What do you think?

Also I am really enjoying your Make a Wish Foundation recipe efforts. It is a very sweet thing to read the stories. I remember those chocolate cakes with a cup of oil in them, too! Always the kind of thing one saw at church dinners. It's really lovely of you to do that.

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi Cammie,

Thank you. I think plums sound like a great idea and it might be good if you could cook off some of the liquid like you suggested...that way you wouldn't pour off all the flavor in the juice, simply concentrate it. I'm also wondering what would happen if you took those plums with their juices and added chia seeds to them and refrigerated overnight to gel up a bit, much the way people do when they make "chia jam"? That way you could add the thickened plums to the cake. You could also try reducing the amount of fruit a bit (it calls for 3 cups and you could make it a bit less). Alternatively you could make a drier cake to accommodate the wetter plums by simply reducing the other liquids a little bit or bumping up the absorbent ingredients a little bit (like the coconut flour...and extra tablespoon or so) or the ground flax...an extra tablespoon or 2. You may want to make a half-sized cake the first time with the modifications to see what kind of tweaking it may still need.

Thanks again and let me know if any of these options works for you. :-)

Cammie said...

Hi, and thanks for your very helpful suggestions. After thawing the plums, I decided to first make a small batch of the plum chia jam, and I wasn't really thrilled wth the taste. I think perhaps the plums lost flavor in the year they spent in the freezer. I made a batch of chia jam with fresh plums, and the difference in flavor was really noticeable. I thought if I didn't want to eat the jam made from frozen plums, I probably wouldn't want to eat the cake, either! But I really wanted to make the cake, so I cut up some fresh plums and let them sit for a bit with a tsp or so of ground chia to soak up the juice, as you suggested. I added a little more cinnamon and a bit of nutmeg, since plums and spices go well together, and subbed a small amount of orange extract instead of the strawberry extract. The cake was delicious and very moist, with a light crunch from the chia. Even my hubby, who is not a plum fan, liked it. I think next time I might make it as muffins with a little bit of that cream cheese glaze from your blueberry biscuit recipe. Probably 20 minutes or so for muffins to bake, do you think?

This year I have decided to dry all the plums instead of freezing them, so next I will try making this cake with dried plums, maybe soak them in a wee bit of brandy first ... But first I have to make a batch of your buttermilk biscuits to use up the fresh plum chia jam!

Thanks again for all your great ideas. I really appreciate your creativity!

Cammie

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi Cammie,

So happy your experimenting turned out well! I'm in agreement with you that your cake could only turn out as good as the ingredients you added and since it was a "plum" cake, that ingredient was super important.

I think it would be great as muffins, too. 20 minutes is probably about right; you might want to start checking on them at 15 minutes. You could always use the old "toothpick test" in the center or sometimes I gentle touch/press the center to see if it feels done and doesn't leave a depression where my finger touched. The toothpick is probably safer. I love the idea of using the dried plums because I think it would concentrate the plum flavor so much more (the brandy couldn't hurt either). I think the vanilla cream cheese glaze would be awesome on your plum muffins. You can frost it in the chilled state or spread on warm muffins and it just melts so nicely and doesn't run off because the cream cheese helps keep it where you want it. You are very welcome. I hope you enjoy your "glazed plum muffins". :-)