Strawberry Coffee Cake is an old fashioned recipe that your family is sure to love!
Modern food and recipes can often be complicated and full of ingredients. Sometimes I long to go back to the simple and basic recipes of years ago.
The kind of recipes our grandmothers and great grandmothers used to make. The kind of recipes that use basic everyday ingredients and the best of what is in season.
One of the things that I love to do when I visit my family in Oregon is to go through my grandmother’s and my mom’s recipe boxes. There are so many great old recipes from generations past in those boxes.
I have gone through these recipe boxes many times and each time different recipes catch my attention to copy down. One of these days I might just sneak my grandmother’s recipe box home with me. It is a treasure I would love to have.
Going through recipe boxes like my grandma’s also makes me realize the younger generations will not have treasures like this. Yes, there will still be recipes boxes, but so much now is online.
Yes, my kids will basically have my whole website instead of a recipe box, but a website or online recipe box, doesn’t seem quite the same as a recipe handwritten by a past generation.
I think maybe future generations will miss out on what a treasure hand written recipes and recipe boxes are.
When I went through some of my grandma’s recipes on a recent trip to Oregon, a recipe for Strawberry Crunch Cake caught my attention. It was not a hand written recipe, but instead was a recipe that my grandma must have cut out or off of something.
My grandma often saved recipes off the back of bags and boxes. In fact, some of my favorite recipes from my grandma come from recipes she cut out and then made notes about how she changed them up.
As soon as I saw this recipe for Strawberry Crunch Cake I knew I needed to make it. I could tell it was a form of a coffee cake.
It is kind of a cross between a cake and a biscuit type shortcake. I decided to call it Strawberry Coffee Cake because it reminds me a lot of a coffee cake, but whatever you call it, it is really good.
This reminds me of a coffee cake because it has the texture of a coffee cake. It is not dry, but it does not have the texture of a regular cake either. It is a lot like coffee cakes that I have made because the cake batter is not really a batter, it is more of a thick press in the pan type batter.
My family loved this warm from the oven. It was delicious! It was also very good the next day reheated in the microwave to warm it up slightly.
What I love most about this is that it uses pretty basic everyday ingredients. And it is perfect for this time of year when fresh strawberries are readily available.
Looking for other old fashioned basic recipes?
- Applesauce Bread
- My mom’s Lemon Bars
- Apple Cake with Caramel Sauce
- Rhubarb Muffins
- My mom’s Rhubarb Cake
- Coconut Bars
- Applesauce Cake
Strawberry Coffee Cake
Strawberry Coffee Cake is an old fashioned coffee cake that my grandmother used to make. It is easy to make using basic ingredients.
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups flour ( I used Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 gf flour)
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- ⅓ cup sugar
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup shortening
- ⅔ cup milk
- 1 egg
Filling
- 2 cups sliced strawberries
- ½ cup sugar
Topping
- ¼ cup butter
- ¼ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup flour ( I used Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 gf flour)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375.
- In a bowl combine flour, baking powder, ⅓ cup sugar, and salt.
- Cut in shortening until well mixed and shortening is about pea sized.
- In a small bowl combine milk and egg. Stir into flour mixture.
- Spread/press mixture into 11 x 7 inch Pyrex pan.
- Spoon berries over batter.
- Sprinkle with ½ cup sugar.
- In a small bowl combine ¼ cup sugar and ⅓ cup flour.
- Cut in butter until crumbly and butter is pea sized or smaller.
- Sprinkle over strawberry mixtures.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes or until cake is set, and toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Be sure not to over bake though.
- Let cool slightly and enjoy! Or reheat slightly for serving.
Notes
This can be made gluten free by using a gluten free flour blend. I have made it with Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free blend and it works great.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 266Total Fat: 10gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 30mgSodium: 339mgCarbohydrates: 40gFiber: 1gSugar: 19gProtein: 4g
Originally published May 26, 2015. Updated May 21, 2019
Do you use the new Bob Red mills all purpose flour with the sweet white rice or the one that has bean flour in it?
I use the one with sweet rice. The one the more recent one they came out with. I don’t really like the gf blend they have with bean flour in it, so if you see me mentioning using their blend it will be the newer sweet rice one.
I love that you are slowly but surely capturing your grandmother’s recipes here, Lynn. I do agree that we’re losing something with everything online.
I’ve featured this recipe on All Gluten-Free Desserts. Thanks!
Shirley
I love the old recipes, either on cards, old typewriter style, especially the one’s with hand written notes. I didn’t get my Gma’s recipes and oh how I miss them. I have been gifted the recipes via email or some were written down from a Lithuanian cook book that my Gma had.
This is one that I will try for sure. I love strawberry shortcake so this is gonna be good. I bet it would be good with cream cheese in there somewhere as well. I agree it does seem like a biscuit as well as a cake.
Thank you for sharing this one, you have some good one’s.
Do you think that Coconut Oil could be used in place of the shortening?
I love your site, and am anxious to make your grandma’s Strawberry Coffee Cake.
In some recipes it works, but I have not tired it in this one. I think it is worth trying though.
Do you actually use “shortening” or do you have some sort of substitute that you use? I don’t even buy that stuff, so I would have to substitute organic butter. Don’t know if that would change the recipe’s texture or not, but it will have to work!
Also, it’s been raining and snowing here for what seems like forever (there are state-wide flood warnings for today) but it’s actually “raining snow” in my area right now, and we have no “fresh, local” strawberries right now. The temps have barely been out of the 30’s & 40’s in weeks, and even the lilacs are far from blooming. Usually by now the lilacs have bloomed and are done for the year. I actually love this kind of cool, overcast weather, but not many people are with me on that! My poor rose bushes don’t know what to do. Yesterday there was a garter snake crawling around in the sleety snow build-up on the driveway. I’ll bet he didn’t know what to think.
I would have to buy frozen berries and let them thaw. If I do that I’m supposing I would have to thaw them in a strainer in the sink so the juice would not be used, right?
This does sound delicious and simple, and amazingly like something my gramma farm used to make, too. I love old recipes but the only ones I have are not written down – – they are what I remember my two gramma’s doing when I was in their kitchen with them. Consequently, not much is in my recall.
I only use shortening in a few recipes. This is one of them… I am not a huge fan of shortening either, but I do use it occasionally especially in older family recipes that call for it. I have used the Sprectrum brand shortening because it is slightly healthier, but it is harder to find in my area. I think you could probably use butter in this it would probably just have a slightly different texture. I think frozen strawberries would work, but yes you would want to strain them or they would be too liquidy. I hope that helps! Our current weather this week is in the 70’s and 80’s with thunderstorms and rain that we don’t really need. I don’t like spring storms, but I do like cool rainy days, but I am really glad that we don’t have snow. I am glad you don’t mind that kind of weather though. It is always good to see the positive. 🙂 I hope you have a great day!