Joyce Snyder's Strawberry Cake

Image copyright MyrtleArt Photography

Strawberry cake is my Mother's birthday cake. From childhood, my Grandmother would faithfully bake Strawberry Cake on September 3rd for my Mother. Even when she was in college at Marygrove in Detroit, an hour's drive from Jackson, my Grandmother would make sure that her eldest daughter had this cake to celebrate. As luck would have it, a visit by my parents to Detroit this year coincided with my Mother's birthday - of course I had to make Strawberry Cake and it was a great success. I was concerned that a dish so entrenched in memory and nostalgia would be hard to duplicate but judging from the clean baking dish at the end of the night, I needn't have worried!

Joyce Snyder's Strawberry Cake

1/2 cup water

4 eggs

2/3 cup frozen or fresh strawberries (mostly berries)

1 - 3 oz box strawberry jello

2/3 cup oil

1 deluxe white cake mix

Directions:

1. Beat all ingredients together
2. Follow baking directions on cake mix

Image copyright MyrtleArt Photography

Frosting

1/4 lb butter (or margarine)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 to 2 lb 4X sugar

juice and leftover berries

Directions:

1. Mix together to spreading consistency
2. Frost when cake is completely cool

Image copyright MyrtleArt Photography

Notes:

I've found that fresh strawberries are indeed the best way to go but you can use frozen in a pinch. I mashed the strawberries with a fork before adding to the cake as it's easier to have smaller pieces rather than whole berries in the mix! Also, note that 4X sugar is confectioner's sugar and the amount needed will vary based on your desired frosting consistency.

Image copyright MyrtleArt Photography

Ozark Mountain Apple Cake

Image copyright MyrtleArt Photography

As a child this apple treat seemed impossibly exotic - a cake named for a distant sounding mountain range? My imagination would run wild and for a short period of time I thought that if you lived in the Ozark Mountains you must eat cake every day!

The recipe comes courtesy of Mrs. L. Collins (in Jackson Cit Pat).
Note: Non-locals know the "Cit Pat" as the Jackson, Michigan daily newspaper, the Citizen Patriot. Until I was in grade school, I thought everyone called it the "Cit Pat."

Ozark Mountain Apple Cake
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 cups peeled and sliced fresh apples
2 teaspoons vanilla


Image copyright MyrtleArt Photography

Directions:

• Cream together butter and sugar
• Add eggs and beat
• Sift dry ingredients together.
• Stir in dry ingredients alternately with apples and vanilla.
• Pour batter into greased 9"x13" loaf pan.
• Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes
• Frost, if desired, with Butter Frosting
  

Notes:
My mother always used a bundt pan rather than a loaf pan. Also, I always remembered dusting the top of the cake with powdered sugar, rather than frosting. Either way, the intent is to look like snow on top of the mountains. If you're feeling especially creative you can insert fresh flowers or other decor in the middle of the bundt, as I did here with tulips.