Naked Man Strawberry Cake with Almond Icing

Back home, when strawberry season lasted for only two or three weeks, my mom would buy me a ton of strawberries and I would get really excited eating them and trying to figure out what else to do with so many strawberries. This recipe (slightly modified over the years) was always made around this time. Now that I’m in Vancouver, I have a feeling I’ll be making this more than once or twice a year – the other day I got 2 lbs of strawberries for three dollars! Crazy!

You may be wondering about the name of the cake. Well, in this song by the Sugarcubes, Bjork is singing about this woman who finds an unhappy naked man in her flat, and he climbs onto the roof, so she pleads, “naked man, naked man, calm down! I-I’ll give you some strawberry cake”.

So if you find any suicidal naked men on your roof, I think this cake would be a pretty good way of enticing them down and giving them some hope. It’s definitely contentment-inducing, and it tastes like summer (to me, at least). It’s pretty healthy, as far as cakes go – not a fancy decadent cake, but it is not the place of every cake to be fancy and decadent. Makes a good afternoon tea cake, or a sweet breakfast. It doesn’t even really need icing – you could just leave it off, or try something like the crumble topping in this recipe, but with almonds instead of cashews.


Naked Man Strawberry Cake

1 ½ cups flour (I did half and half all-purpose and spelt, and it was great – next time I’ll try all spelt and see how that goes, but all-all-purpose works as well)
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup cane sugar
¾ cup non-dairy milk (I used almond)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract or amaretto
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons soy yogurt
1 tablespoon flax meal (or other egg replacer to equal 1 egg)
1 ½ cups strawberries, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, stir together the flour(s), baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, vanilla, almond, oil, yogurt and flax, whisking really well (or use a hand blender). Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix gently (don’t over-mix). Fold in the strawberries. Pour batter into a lightly oiled cake pan and bake for about 30 minutes – if a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, it’s done.

Almond Icing

4 tablespoons earth balance margarine
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup almond butter (smooth, not chunky)
3 tablespoons non-dairy milk (I used almond)

Blend all ingredients together. If it looks too thick, add a small amount of milk to thin it out. Spread over the cake once cooled.

This cake is quite excellent with extra fresh strawberries and/or coconut milk ice cream.