Recipes

Strawberries are everywhere right now, at least in Southern California. They are fresh, intensely sweet, and pretty inexpensive if you keep your eyes open. And more so they are just delicious. Other than eating some virtually every night with whipped cream for dessert, one of my other favorite ways to use strawberries is in a simple buttermilk cake. It is really simple to make and bakes in under 20 minutes. I can eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert but try to hold myself to one slice a day.

Weight Watchers Summer Strawberry Cake
Points: 4 Weight Watchers PointsPlus
Servings: 8
Serving Size: 1/8 of cake
Nutritional Info: 154.1 calories, 3.5 g fat, 22.9 g carbohydrates, 1.6 g fiber, 6.4 g protein

Ingredients
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup Splenda sugar blend
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)
1 large egg
3/4 cup well-shaken reduced fat buttermilk
1 cup (5 ounces or 140 grams) fresh strawberries, halved
1 tbsp brown sugar, optional for topping

Instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients and mix together removing any clumps. In another bowl, cream together the butter and eggs. Whisk in the egg, buttermilk, and vanilla. Slowly stir the wet and dry ingredients together until mixed. Try not to over mix or the cake will become tough. The tough will be a little sticky.

3. Pour everything into a round cake pan. Place the strawberries in the top of the cake. You could also chop 1/2 of the strawberries into smaller pieces and mix them into the dough if you desire. Sprinkle the top with brown sugar.

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!