A treat for mom

Looking for the perfect Mother’s Day gift? Show mom how much you love her with a pretty pink cake made from the freshest strawberries the season has to offer.

Most strawberry cake recipes use strawberryflavored gelatin to give the cake its fruit flavor, but this cake has fresh strawberries baked right in.

You’ll simmer the fresh berries with salt and sugar to make a ruby-red sauce, mashing the berries as they cook until they’re thick and jammy. A splash of balsamic vinegar intensifies the fruit’s sweet and floral flavors.

The rosy hue of this cake is created naturally thanks to freeze-dried strawberries. Once a specialty item, freeze-dried fruits are now widely available at most grocery stores.

You’ll use a food processor to grind the freezedried strawberries into a very fine powder that incorporates seamlessly into the dry ingredients.

Most cake batters are made by creaming together butter and sugar until lightened in color and fluffy — a mixing method called the “creaming method.”

This strawberry cake is assembled with the reverse creaming method, in which the sugar is mixed with the dry ingredients first, then creamed with the butter. This coats the flour in fat, resulting in less gluten formation when the wet ingredients are added — and giving you a tender cake with a fine, velvety texture.

Classic American buttercream — a simple mix of whipped butter and powdered sugar — is the perfect finishing touch. For extra strawberry flavor and a pretty pink color, mix in some of the same fresh strawberry sauce used in the cake.

Buttercream, no matter the style, can be cloyingly sweet, so you’ll also add freshly squeezed lemon juice and salt to balance the sugar and amplify the strawberry flavor.

Makes:

For the strawberry sauce: teaspoon balsamic vinegar

For the cake: cups freeze-dried strawberries cups granulated sugar teaspoons baking powder teaspoon baking soda tablespoons vegetable oil teaspoon vanilla extract

For the strawberry buttercream and decoration: cups powdered sugar

Make strawberry sauce: 1. Place 2. Pour

Make the cake: 1. Arrange 2. Process

JOE LINGEMAN 1 1 3 3 1 1 2 1 5 2 1 1 2 Cooking spray tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (from 1 lemon) 2 sticks unsalted butter, cubed and at room temperature 4 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature