A Simple Spoon Cake Is The Absolute Best Way To Take Advantage Of Fresh Summer Produce
Arguably, one of the best parts about summer is taking advantage of all of the delicious summer fruit, such as strawberries and peaches. And one of the best ways to use up all of the tasty in-season produce is to make a spoon cake.
For anyone unfamiliar, a spoon cake is a simple cake that has a soft, gooey interior and crispy outer edges. Because of the softer consistency, this cake is typically served by scooping out a piece with a spoon rather than slicing it, which is how the cake gets its name.
The base of the cake is made with basic ingredients — flour, sugar, butter, and so on. But the best part of the cake is how customizable it is. Strawberry is arguably the most common addition, but just about any fruit will make for a delicious, fresh, summery dessert. Of course, if you do go with strawberries, then you need to know about the simple rule for choosing the absolute best strawberries: if the bright red hue extends to the stem, then those strawberries are ultra ripe and sweet. In other words, those are the strawberries that you want to buy to make your spoon cake with.
Which fruits work best for spoon cake?
Spoon cake can be made with either fresh or frozen fruit. However, if you're making a spoon cake to highlight all of the in-season summer fruit, then you may as well use fresh. Plus, using frozen requires the extra step of thawing the fruit first — but this is good to know in case you want to make, say, a strawberry spoon cake in the wintertime (and the dessert is so tasty that you very well may want to).
When it comes to choosing which fruit to go with, there are plenty of fruits and veggies that are in season in summer. On the fruit side of things, there are blackberries, peaches, raspberries, cherries, and blueberries — all of which are perfect for a spoon cake.
You can also combine some of these fruits for the ultimate summery, fruity spoon cake. A mixed berry combination is always guaranteed to be a hit — try raspberries and blueberries, or maybe blackberries and blueberries, or even a combination of all three for a tasty (and colorful) mixed berry cake. Other tasty combinations include peaches and raspberries, strawberries and blueberries, or cherries and peaches. Another idea is to go with a color theme: raspberries and strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, and so on. Whatever you decide on, just make sure to avoid the most common mistakes when buying produce. After all, you want to buy the very best fruit so that the spoon cake is as delicious as possible.