The good life {part1}...

he looked very handsome whilst baking....

We baked a lovely cake the other day. A strawberry upside-down cake to be exact.

And... it was awesome...

So, we thought we would share the recipe with you. We also made one with apples, too (which you can try - 2 big Bramely's, if you want to know), but thought the strawberry was even MORE special.

She is not the best looking cake on the block when turned out, but hey, this girl tries real hard to be extra tasty and sure makes up for it with her personality! ;)

We wanted to make this as close to dairy free as possible (as R is lactose intolerant, but can take a tiny little milk if cooked into a cake) and as low-sugar as we could, while making a caramel, as my Dad is Diabetic...really pleased with the results over-all!

INGREDIENTS and METHOD (adapted and tweaked from Rachel Allen's Cranberry Upside down cake in Bake):

400g punnet of Strawberries (approx)

For the Caramel...

50g of Pure Margarine

100g of Sweet Freedom Syrup

For the Batter:

DRY

200g Plain Flour

100g of Caster Sugar

tsp Baking Powder

half tsp Bicarb

good pinch of Salt

WET

2 large eggs

200 ml skimmed milk soured with a splash of vinegar (or buttermilk if you have it)

75 ml of ground nut oil

Hull your strawberries and cut them in to halves or quarters as you like... while doing this, on a low heat, melt together your sugar, margarine and syrup in a pan to form the caramel. Once the caramel is melted, bubbling and golden, pop your fruit into the pan and stir to coat each and every one...

Carefully measure out your dry ingredients into a big mixing bowl, and your wet ingredients in a mixing jug - whisk these two together, wet in to dry, until you have a good, thick batter.

Pour your caramelly strawb's into a non-stick 10" oiled Spring-Form cake-tin and even out - onto this, pour your cake batter. Smooth out and immediately transfer into your pre-heated oven (180 C or 350 F) for baking 'till golden, raised and oozingly good (we did ours for 35 mins, or until the cake tester comes out almost clean).

Turn out, cool just a little...then... indulge! :)

You'll thank us later!

abigail*ryan