By Jerrelle Guy
- Total Time
- 30 minutes, plus cooling
- Rating
- 5(9,350)
- Notes
- Read community notes
This unfussy cake with a top layer of jammy strawberries is so gooey it’s best to serve the whole thing with a spoon. The batter comes together quickly with minimal effort, using basic pantry ingredients and a small handful of berries — frozen or fresh. If you’re using frozen, be sure to defrost them in the microwave first. Extract as much juice as possible from the fruit by macerating and mashing it, so that it lends the cake additional moisture while baking. Add a dash of freshly ground cardamom or ground ginger on top before baking it off, if you like, or some ribbons of fresh basil once it’s hot out of the oven. Whatever embellishments you decide on, burrowing warm spoonfuls of this cake beside scoops of vanilla ice cream is the most important thing.
Featured in: Sweet, Tender and Studded With Strawberries
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Ingredients
Yield:4 servings
- ½cup/115 grams unsalted butter (1 stick), melted, plus more for greasing
- 5ounces/145 grams frozen and thawed or fresh, hulled strawberries (about 1 cup)
- ⅔cup/150 grams packed light brown sugar
- ½cup/120 milliliters whole milk, at room temperature
- ½teaspoon kosher salt
- 1cup/130 grams all-purpose flour
- 1teaspoon baking powder
- Vanilla ice cream, for serving
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)
529 calories; 26 grams fat; 16 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 70 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 43 grams sugars; 5 grams protein; 367 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Step
1
Heat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8-inch (square or round) baking dish with butter. Set aside.
Step
2
Using your hands or the back of a fork, mash the berries to release all their juices, and stir in ⅓ cup of the brown sugar. Set aside.
Step
3
In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, remaining ⅓ cup brown sugar, milk and salt, then add the flour and baking powder and continue whisking just until the batter is smooth. Transfer the batter (it’s not much) to the greased baking dish, and spread evenly into corners.
Step
4
Spoon the strawberries and all their juices over the top of the cake batter. Place in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or just when a toothpick comes out clean in the center. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 3 to 5 minutes before spooning into bowls. Serve warm with ice cream.
Ratings
5
out of 5
9,350
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Cooking Notes
Sara James
I ate this whole thing by myself. All of it.
Mary Alford
This is a riff on an old fashioned recipe called “Essies Cobbler”. I recommend melting the butter in the pan while the oven is preheating (leaving a bit in the pan and putting the batter in the hot pan create a lovely chewy crust) and also increasing the amount of fruit which can be any juicy fruit - peaches, blueberries, etc.
annsch
This was a delicious easy dessert. I chopped 1 up of fresh rhubarb and simmered it with the 1/3 c. Brown sugar, when it was softened I added the strawberries.We are huge strawberry rhubarb fans, this might be better than our family pie recipe!
Faded elegance
I browned the butter. Misread the recipe and heated oven only to 325. After 20 minutes discovered the error. Increased temp to 350 and baked for 15 mins more. Absolutely fabulous! The strawberries were caramelized, and the cake had a beautiful color and texture. I will never use Julia’s clafoutis recipe again, and I intend to make my temp/timing mistake each time I bake this. Plus browning the butter added so much umami. Almost as good the next morning at room temp with coffee. A real keeper.
Caroline
I have some nectarines that need to be used. Do you think it would work in place of the strawberries?
Klom
This is the first time I felt the need to add a comment after several years of happily trying NYT recipes. Expected this to be a little heavy and wet but it is the airiest cake - and also moist! Needless to say this came out great. Followed the recipe with some extras - grated fresh young ginger roots to the strawberry-sugar mix, zested lemons and added 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste into the wet ingredients before adding the dry ingredients. Am in Bangkok. Will use ripe mangoes next time.
Mark
I’ve made versions of this recipe before; it’s basically a clafouti, a French cake. The first version I made years ago was from a Jane Brody cookbook. Any fruit is good in it. I’ve used blueberries, tart cherries, peaches and strawberries, solo or mixed together.
Sean
The big distinction being that clafoutis is very egg rich and this cake interestingly enough has no eggs.
Summer
My family inhaled this in one sitting! We used Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten-free flour and fresh-picked strawberries. Served it warm with strawberry ice cream (made from scratch also with our garden berries). What a summer treat!
Faith
My grandmother taught me this recipe over 50 years ago. She called it Lazy Woman’s Cobbler. I still use that recipe and alternate the spices related to the fruit and season. So easy to make and take to family and friends. I tried this recipe as written worked perfectly.
Liana
I just made a version of this (with rhubarb) where the last step before oven involves sprinkling top with another 1/2 cup of white sugar and then pouring a 3/4 cup of heavy cream over the top of everything (use a deeper pan). Cream intermingles with the cake, fruit, and sugar to make a golden-brown custard-y topping. We still had the ice cream.
Lu
I made this with fresh cherries (I used 22, cut in half after removing the pits) and added a drop of almond extract to the cherry/sugar mix. Delicious !!!
Mary
lulzI love my baked goods with poisons.
Kathleen Russell
DON’T MAKE THIS CAKE! It is highly addicting.
Sharon Lansing
NYT Notes:- This is a riff on an old fashioned recipe called “Essies Cobbler”. I recommend melting the butter in the pan while the oven is preheating (leaving a bit in the pan and putting the batter in the hot pan create a lovely chewy crust) and also increasing the amount of fruit which can be any juicy fruit - peaches, blueberries, etc.- Chop 1 up of fresh rhubarb and simmered it with the 1/3 c. Brown sugar, when it was softened I added the strawberries.
Liesel
Simply. The. Best. Enough said.
margie
Amazingly simple and delicious!
Dee
Easy and very tasty but also extremely sweet - especially when adding ice cream. I think 1/3 C sugar total would be more than enough.
ES
Have been dreaming about this recipe for 3 years but never made it until today. Used frozen blueberries, cut the sugar to 1/3 of a cup, and added 1/2 teaspoon of grated ginger just because I wanted to. The biscuit texture is light, fluffy, gooey where the fruit juice pools…absolutely swoon-worthy. And the whole thing took 30 minutes, start to finish. I’m going to make this cake with every fruit under the sun.
termeh
Would this work in a cupcake tin? I loved this recipe and it’s simplicity. Hoping to recreate it in personal serving sizes.
katie
Notes from a new baker! Would love to have seen in instructions:- whisk dry ingredients first. I imagine a more experienced person would have known to do that without explicitly being told, but noobs read instructions very literally. Biting into a pocket of BP was not fun. - mash strawberries partially but not so they’re too small and runny. I didn’t look at the picture while I was baking, so only relying on the written instructions, I did too much mashing, which made the topping watery.
j
possibly my favorite cake recipe of all time
Jane Eyrehead
I add a little vanilla or almond flavor and it is so easy and good. Everyone likes it.
Sunita
I made this for Diwali. It was an absolute hit and sooooo delicious. I added some vanilla. That’s it! Make this, you’ll love it.
JR
A lovely, easy way to please your loved ones. I added this icing https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015540-cream-cheese-frosting (halved the recipe) and got rave reviews
Rise K
I made this with 1/2 cup white flour, 1/4 cup cornmeal, and 1/4 cup spelt. I’m at 5,000 feet. I started it at 375 degrees for 10 minutes and reduced the heat to 350. Still had to bake it about 15 minutes longer than the directions indicated. It’s nice. We are having it for breakfast.
Minh-Hai
What other fruits besides berries and stone fruits work well for this cake? Thinking of a fall/winter version
Clare Kleinedler
LOVED this easy and more-ish (as in, you want more of it!) dessert. Even a mistake on my part (I ended up using all the sugar to mascerate the berries, so ended up not adding any sugar to the actual cake batter) had no bearing on the final product - just sweet enough, sticky on top from the brown sugar and the perfect warm accompanyment to cold, vanilla ice cream.
Emily
This recipe is so easy and delicious! I made it for my roommates after a night out (yes it's that easy) and we DEVOURED it. It pairs really well with ice cream, highly recommend!
Sarah
This is too easy and too delicious not to make. If you want something special and homemade, but only have a few minutes, this is an excellent choice. You cannot go wrong.
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