This recipe for Greek yogurt and strawberries crumb cake ushers in the beautiful season that first took a while to arrive, then debuted with excessive heat, and finally, at least for now, seems in doubt about what to do.
Let’s give it time while I, too, take some more time to decide what to do.
These days, I was thinking back to my resolution at the beginning of the year to turn the blog into an archive with more than 400 recipes and a handful of guides dedicated to Bologna, where I live and work. I’ll tell you about that below the recipe.
A crumb cake to celebrate the first strawberry basket
I bought a half-kilogram basket of strawberries. And since I was craving a creamy, indulgent dessert, I decided to use some of them to make a crumble cake filled with fresh strawberries and Greek yogurt.
Of course, sbriciolata (crumb cake) is a variant of sbrisolona, a cake of Mantuan origin that has been popular in the Emilia-Romagna region. Especially in Parma, Reggio Emilia, Piacenza and Modena area.
Here I’m sharing a recipe that resembles sbrisolona in the base ingredients and the crumbly topping that covers the cake. Compared to the home version I ate as a child, I’ve made a few changes. I used salted butter in the dough instead of unsalted, and Greek yogurt instead of fresh mascarpone. Of course, you can use whatever fruit you like, as long as it’s cut into pieces and left plain.
Recipes for strawberry lovers
- Strawberries to eat, but also to drink! If you have a handful of overripe or slightly bruised strawberries, use them to make a strawberry milkshake, a milk (or other vegetable drink), and a fruit smoothie, to be served in large glasses with colored paper straws. For me, it was the after-pool snack: RECIPE.
- A nice way to use strawberries is to make clafoutis, an egg-based, gluten-free dessert. Suppose you’re wondering what this recipe is doing on a blog dedicated to the Via Emilia. In that case, the answer is that I don’t know either. It is part of my journey as I focus on my cooking project: RECIPE.
- I have always loved Italian semifreddo. This cream, chocolate, and strawberry frozen dessert is easy to make and takes me back to my childhood, when the flavors were clear, perhaps simpler, and made everyone happy: RECIPE.
- If you are a blog reader, you know that I make colorful jars of jam in line with family tradition and personal taste. I never use first fruits to make jam; I wait until the end of each fruit’s season for two reasons: they cost less and taste better. Of strawberry jam recipes, I have two, both from my family repertoire: RECIPE.
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Greek yogurt and strawberries crumb cake
Equipment
- 1 round mold 25 cm in diameter
Ingredients
Base
- 100 g of fine yellow cornmeal flour or all-purpose flour
- 100 g of almond flour alternatively 100 g finely ground almonds in the blender
- 100 g of whole-wheat or spelt flour
- 100 g of brown sugar
- 100 g of cubed cold salted butter
- 1 egg, about 60 g
Filling
- 200 g of strawberries
- 2 tablespoons filtered lemon juice
- 20 g of brown sugar
- 400 g of Greek yogurt or fresh ricotta
- 50 g of powdered sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- 100 g of white chocolate, optional
Instructions
Base
- Mix the different types of flour with the sugar in a large bowl. Then add the butter and egg and work the mixture with your fingertips until you get a dough of large crumbs. Set aside in the refrigerator.
Filling
- Wash and cut strawberries as you like, season with lemon juice and sugar, mix with a metal spoon, and set aside.
- Mix yogurt, sugar, salt, and egg with a spoon until smooth. Set aside.
Crumb cake assembling
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C (356 °F), static function.
- Butter the mold, or line it with baking paper. Place more than half of the dough in the bottom of the cake pan, then press it lightly with your fingers to form the base.
- Pour the cream over the base and spread it with a spatula.
- Drain the strawberries of their juice (which you’ll set aside for another use, such as flavoring yogurt). Arrange the strawberries on top of the cream and sprinkle chocolate chips or pieces among them.
- Crumble the dough you set aside over the fruit to cover the whole surface.
- Bake for 40 minutes or until the surface is golden brown.
- Remove the crumb cake from the oven and, before slicing, let it cool to lukewarm, or let it cool completely and refrigerate for a couple of hours.
Tips
- Warm or cold? If it’s still warm, it will be slightly soft, so slice it without removing it from the mold. If, conversely, you’re serving it after chilling it in the refrigerator, place the cake on a serving plate and slice it without any trouble. If the cake still seems soft when you try to move or slice it, put it in the freezer for 10 minutes.
- You can use unsalted butter for the base and add 1 g of salt.
- You can use half Greek yogurt and half cottage cheese in the filling. Ricotta and stracchino also work well. If you do, replace the strawberries with apricots, peaches, figs (without the peel), grapes, or a few tablespoons of jam.
- Store leftovers in the refrigerator for 2 days.
My blog, the newsletter, and a new job starting
I have been writing this blog for many years, and although the motivation does not waver, the time available to me is not what it used to be. The writing of this blog, and all the work of cooking and research, requires the dedication and time of a job.
Besides, let’s face it, one gets bored with doing the same thing over and over again. After so many years, I felt the situation needed to evolve, and I was with it. So I decided to turn the newsletter into my new appointment with writing and cooking by creating a space other than the blog.
The most important change involved the decision to turn this work, convincingly and definitively, into a … job. The transition from a food writer to one who does the same thing with the knowledge that she is a professional has been complex.
For this reason, if you follow the blog, you will have noticed that I am less present here today.
After long reflection, I’ve made my decision. This blog is a virtual space that means a lot to me. I’ll keep updating it, though perhaps less frequently. What do you think?
