It's...It's...It's Alive!!

Now I know how those crazy, tapir-smackin' apes from "2001: A Space Odyssey" feel, for I too, have invented something. No one had to die in the process, but I make no promises that my kitchen won't eventually turn out a bone-bludgeoned corpse or two.

Like the rotten bananas before them, I had a science-project-like carton of strawberries growing soft, fluffy mold in my fridge. These babies were firmly in the "mash into a baked good" category of fresh produce.

So I pulled out my blender after this morning's 5 mile run (staying busy in the kitchen helps keep my post-run legs from cramping up) and pureed those strawberries, fuzzy spots and all. With all the vegan baking I've been doing lately, I am now looking for a way to avoid fake butter and egg substitute powders. Not only is the processed stuff not so great for general health, but it's a pain in the ass trying to get butter to soften in my sub-zero apartment. Fruit purees seem to be the way to go.

I found a recipe, which originally called for 1/2 cup of butter. So I blended up 1/2 cup worth of the dozen or so strawberries I had to the consistency of semi-chunky applesauce. The remaining 1/2-ish cup I blended a bit thinner (like regular applesauce) to be used later in the frosting.

I omitted the egg and instead added a bit more milk. Next time I might throw in some flax meal because this cake turned out very dense.

I also put a teaspoon of corn starch in the bottom of each cup of flour to make it a little lighter. I've seen recipes that call for as much as a tablespoon. Or you could just use cake flour. And mix it with your solid gold whisk, moneybags.

So here's the recipe for HOOKER-WITH-A-HEART-OF-GOLD CAKE (so named because the fruit was very bad, but very sweet)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup strawberry puree

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups soymilk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp of salt

2 1/2 tsp of baking powder

3 cups minus 3 tsp of all-purpose flour

3 tsp of corn starch

Instructions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 and grease a 9x13 inch pan (or equivalent).

Sift together the flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.

Mix the milk and vanilla. Set aside.

With a hand mixer, cream together the strawberry puree and sugar.

Alternate adding the flour mixture and milk mixture to the strawberries and sugar, mixing well, and scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally with a spatula. After everything is mixed together, beat continuously for about a minute.

Put the mixture into the pan and give it a few bangs on the counter to get out the air bubbles (mine always still have air bubbles, no matter how hard I bang).

Bake for about 30 minutes.

Let cool for a few minutes in the pan and then turn out onto a rack to cool completely before frosting with (in keeping with the theme):

WHORES ROUGE, LADIES PINCH STRAWBERRY FROSTING

Ingredients:

1/2 cup veg marg, very soft

up to 4 cups powdered sugar

1/2 - 3/4 cups strawberry puree

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

Cream the veg marg and two cups of the powdered sugar until smooth-ish.

Add half the puree and the vanilla and mix some more.

Alternate between adding half cups of powdered sugar and strawberry puree, tasting and scraping the sides of a bowl occasionally until it reaches the desired sweetness.

When the cake is completely cool, frost the heck out of it.

There was extra frosting since this wasn't a layer cake so next time I'll probably tweak the ratios to make a little less. Since I'm planning to make a small pan of dark chocolate brownies in the near future, I'll just frost those. Note, however, that if you do save the extra in the fridge, you will need to warm it back to room temperature (or defrost a bit in the microwave) to make it spreadable again.

This cake is dense and delicious; almost like a pound cake. I'd be interested to see what it tastes like without the delectable, almost tooth-rottingly sweet frosting. But I'll be honest with you kids, this frosting is amazing. It tastes like...something...something sweet from childhood that I can't quite place. Like Trix, maybe? Like Hostess Fruit Pies? Cheap strawberry soft serve?

I don't know but it's I'm-willing-to-pay-by-the-hour-for-another-slice good.