Should we let our life overflow with love or refrain ourselves from vanities? It’s not a question when making a Strawberry lemonade cake.

Humans are complex beings with endless feelings and ideas swirling in our heads day in and day out. Some being suppressed others just blurt out causing irreparable damage or overwhelming joy at an instant.

Can we trust in the gods?

To control ourselves or explain our failure of doing so, we came up with various mental crutches during the years of our existence.

Ancient Greeks were especially good at finding ways to come into terms with the unexplainable nature of our being. They’ve created a whole host of supernatural beings with superhuman abilities and assigned various tasks for them to take care of.

Unfortunately, Greek gods were rather a flimsy caretaker of human affairs. It must have been something to do with the fact, the Greek gods looked like humans and thus behaved as such except of course that they had supernatural powers.

Can gods trust in us?

Later religions were much more careful when crafting their doctrines and creating humans in the likeness of gods, gave much less leeway for humans to be naughty.

Greek and Roman gods weren’t so prudent as the almighty, one and only, seeing everything God of today. But such things can be expected when groups form and the struggles for power and love or both are played out.

Things can be really complicated when the goddess of love and god of trickery gets together in the same story. When Aphrodite and Hermes gave life to their son they didn’t suspect that they will also have to give their names for him too.

Is strawberry a god?

Hermaphroditus was born as a remarkably handsome boy with whom the freshwater spirit Salmacis fell in love. She couldn’t let the idea of living without the boy and prayed to be united forever. A god, in answer to her prayer, merged them into one, hence becoming the two a hermaphrodite inheriting their name from Hermes and Aphrodite.

Although it seems like a bizarre story by today’s standards, ancient Greek philosophers argue that Hermaphroditus is actually the true symbol of marriage where woman and man come together in sacred union essentially becoming one entity.

We can wonder if it’s a coincidence then that the fruit that was considered the symbol of love and fertility is itself a hermaphrodite? Or at least appear hermaphroditic in structure but functions either as male or female.

Can we trust in strawberries?

With such deep meaning and symbolism, the fact the strawberries aren’t really berries at all hardly deserve more than a scribble inked with a thin line in the second third of the side notes.

It seems that everyone loves strawberries, and we can’t get enough of them. This of course leads to farmers doing the best they can to protect their precious fruit by all means possible, driving the strawberries to the top spot of EWG’s dirty dozen list.

If we can look beyond the pesticides or we are able to produce our own without the snails gobbling them all up, strawberry is a really healthy fruit to have in our life. Starting with being an excellent source of vitamin C through the low sugar level, strawberries are really a healthy choice in all sort of diet.

The fact that it can help improve our hearts health through berry anthocyanins, protect our cells from cancer causing oxidants or that its edible leaves are used the help with arthritis pain just bonuses on the long list of benefits.

Can strawberries trust in us?

How much of those goodies survive when we make cakes from the strawberries, is remained to be seen but as soon as the berry season hits the shelves, many feel the desperate attempt of Salmacis who couldn’t let such a beauty straying in the wild world without her.

Ingredients

Cake

3 cups / 450g Flour
4 teaspoons / 12g Baking powder
½ teaspoon / 2g Salt
1 Lemon Zest
2 sticks / 200g Butter (room temperature)
4 Eggs
½ teaspoon / 2.5ml Vanilla extract
¾ cup / 200ml Milk
1 lemon Juice or 1 teaspoon Lemon extract

Jam

32 oz / 100g Strawberries
⅓ cup / 100ml Water

Cream

8 oz / 250g Cream cheese
3 tablespoon Sweetener of choice
1 ½ cup / 350ml Heavy cream
3 tablespoons / 50ml Lemon juice
1 cup / 100g Chopped strawberries

Kitchen equipment

Ø½” / Ø21cm Baking tray

How to make Strawberry lemonade cake

Cake

Measure flour, baking powder, salt, lemon zest, butter, eggs, vanilla extract and milk into a mixing bowl.
Combine all ingredients together.
Mix in lemon juice or lemon extract. Lemon juice will whiten the batter. Acid in lemon juice can negatively affect the baking soda’s ability to raise the cake. A teaspoon of baking soda can help neutralize its effect on the cake.
Pour the batter into parchment papered and/or greased baking form.
Bake in a 360°F / 180°C preheated oven’s bottom rack until the top gets some golden brown spots for about 30 – 40 minutes.
Let it cool a bit then shape it by removing the uneven parts.
Slice the cake into three layers.

Jam

Bring the chopped strawberries and water to boil with the lid on.
Cook the strawberries on medium heat until soft.
Mash them or use a hand blander to puree.
Filter out the bits and seeds. This can take long and require some stirring and mashing things through the sieve.
Put the strawberry puree back to the cook top and reduce it by half or even more. The thicker it will be the more we can stack onto the layers. We can use a somewhat runny jam too but it will seep into the holes and crevices which still taste good but won’t look that nice. Any leftover jam can be canned and stored for later.

Cream

Beat cream cheese and sweetener of choice until soft and creamy.
Mix in the strawberries.
Beat heavy cream and lemon juice until hard peaks form.
Mix cream cheese and heavy cream together. Taste and add more sweetener if desired.

Assembly

Spread strawberry jam onto the first layer and spread it out evenly. If we haven’t reduced the strawberry to a thick spread then seal the outer side of the cake with some frosting first so the jam won’t escape sneakily.
Repeat it with the second layer.
On the third topmost layer skip the jam as it can ruin the even spreading of the cream and go straight to the frosting. Spread about half of the cream cheese frosting on top and the other half on the side of the cake.